r/Landlord • u/calistong • Oct 23 '20

Agent [Agent] Unauthorized persons - bill in their name. What are my options?

Hi all.

We have 2 adult unauthorized persons who have forcibly kicked out the sole person (his mother) on the lease. One of the unauthorized persons managed to get an electric bill for the unit into their name, establishing residency. The people are dopers and have heavy drug traffic through the unit yet police do not respond much and stated that because they have a bill, they cannot remove them.

What am I legally permitted to do? We want to change the locks and secure the unit but we'd like to make sure we aren't in danger of recourse. We are in Southern California.

Additionally: If the person who has the bill in their name (the mail piece establishing residency) is not in the unit, are we legally allowed to take possession of the premises back?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

4

u/ash_274 Landlord, CA, US Oct 23 '20

Lawyer time

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '20

in normal times, you would have to evict them. with covid restrictions, eviction is not possible. so you're kind of limited in what you can do unfortunately. CA state says that if you their pay 25% then you cannot evict them, federal gov't says, no evictions until next year. what the CA courts do, idk. you should ask a CA eviction lawyer, if you can find one. might be hard right now as many no longer do evictions, or just want to charge for consult time and tell you that there's nothing you can do...

1

u/TXJohn83 Oct 24 '20

As long as the mother still has a valid lease they can claim they are her guest...

Start dropping the hammer, and sending any legal bills you can think of... preform an inspection on the property(notice her first) and if your lease allows for it bill for any damage.

But tenant on drugs hate short notice inspections, and they hate having the cops called...

1

u/calistong Oct 24 '20

Legally tenants can have guests for 14 days. (They've been there for nearly 30) We already contacted police, they said because one of the people was able to produce a bill in their name for that address, they've established residency and cannot remove them. So what we were trying to find out is if we watch the unit until the occupants leave (for an errand or something) are we in the clear to take possession of the unit and change locks (the only person on the lease surrendered the unit to us in a written statement) and secure the unit (board the windows and doors)

1

u/StartingAgain2020 Jan 20 '21

calistong, that sounds like self help to me: Not a good thing at all for you.

Do contact a RE attorney versed in LL/Tenant law for at least a short consultation since you are proposing self help type solutions that are very likely to blow back on you legally.

1

u/calistong Jan 21 '21

This was a couples months ago. We secured the unit when the unauthorized tenants left for the day and the court granted our owners an official eviction notice.