Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: A permanent guest

I may be wrong, and if I am, another attorney who specializes in "Landloard-tenant" law will let you know, but, UNFORTUNATELY, I believe you now have a month to month tenant who pays $0 rent. You need to serve him with a 30 day notice to vacate the premises. If he stays, you�ll need to sue him for �Unlawful Detainer.� (File this under the "No good deed goes unpunished" file.)

The good news is this is now reasonably easy for you to do yourself. The State of California office that oversees all Courts in the state very recently put up a Self-help web site which shows you how to do this and MANY OTHER SIMPLE (AND SOME NOT SO SIMPLE) things you'd normally need a lawyer for.

It�s the best thing the court system has EVER done for the average citizen. The web site is:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/selfhelp/

IT WILL GUIDE YOU THRU THE PROCEDURES AND TELL YOU WHERE TO GET THE FORMS, BUT IT ALSO HAS MANY, MANY FORMS FOR YOU TO USE WHICH YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FOR FREE W/ INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO FILL THEM OUT.

Re: A permanent guest

There is statutory provision for removing such people from your home. To the best of my recollection it is a penal code section. One of my prior answers cited the appropriate code section.

The advantage of this approach is that the person has either 48 or 72 hours after being given notice and can be removed by the police.