Landlord Question and Answer Forum

My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Los Angeles California Hello, We are in Los angeles, with an un-permitted back house garage conversion. The conversion was done before we owned the house and was quite nice. full marble bathroom, kitchenette, heater, loft, hardwood floors. 11 years ago, we rented the unit to a friend of our neighbors. Very informal, no lease. Rent increases at never more than 3% ever few years. As time went by, the place became more and more wrecked. The tenant started to hoard and build junky craft decorations. He also became more and more detached from everyone. We never made a big deal out of anything he did. We then decided to ask him to move out. He said that it was much too inconvenient for him and needed 6 months. we told him that we needed it to be two months. I actively tried to find him another place, but he wasn't interested. Finally I received a letter from a free legal clinic. It stated that I didn't have the right to tell him to move out, as we had stated that my wife wanted to move her business into the unit. That apparently isn't a valid reason to ask someone to move out. So we gave up. This was two years ago. Now we want to try and move him on. We have been told that we should try to get him to sign a month to month lease. The goal is to include a clause that agrees that no one will sue for legal damages. I have a lease, which a neighbor landlord uses, It appears to be pretty good. We tried to do a more complicated lease, but it turned into lawyers asking for 2500 dollar retainers. Those leases appeared to talk about the same thing. Any ideas? We just were hoping that we could use our own house again at some point. Thanks I have attached the lease I want to submit: [URL="https://www.dropbox.com/s/qpwu2c7ohwbr3j8/lease%20example.pdf?dl=0"]LEASE DOWNLOAD[/URL]

Always have a paper lease in place usually on extended terms like that it should be month to month for the ease of a 30 day notice. Keep in mind CA laws for the state and City laws for LA may differ. make sure you know what your responsibilities are. If a person is destroying your house, including hoarding that is means for eviction based on unsafe living conditions.

Posted by Derrick D, PA on Tuesday, February 16, 2016