Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

You do not indicate if you have a lease, month to month contract or if there was a contract at all for possession of this property. Without that information it is difficult to tell you what each and every one of your remedies might be. However presuming there was some sort of agreement exchanging rental payments for the right to possess the property gives us a starting point.

#1- rent in exchange for possession- You breached the rental contract by not paying the rent as it came due. At this point he had the right to give you a 3 day notice to start the unlawful detainer process. Rather than do that, he approached you with the offer for:

#2-The Landlord approached you with the barter agreement to exchange 3 months of living in the house for your carpentry work on the unit. You don't say if this agreement was via email or if it was oral or if the 3 months of rent were for past due rent or rent moving forward. The landlord then decided to sell the property and emailed you regarding:

#3- The land lord emailed you offering to forgive the back rent, not charge you for 2 months rent moving forward, pay your moving expenses as well as pay the security deposit and first 3 months rent on a new place in exchange for completion of the carpentry work and your full cooperation during the period before the house was sold. If you responded to him in kind (via email) or in any other way the offer requested an acceptance then there is arguably an enforceable contract.

You don't say if the landlord properly served you with the 3 day notice to pay rent or quit, but if all he did was send you an email telling you to get out in 72 hours, that's not proper notice.

In CA he is required to serve the 3 day notice to pay rent or quit if you have violated a lease or month to month tenancy in on of 7 ways, most notably failing to pay rent. Code of Civil Procedure Section 1161(2)-(4). The landlord must also use a very specific notice with the accurate amount of rent due as well as instructions on how you could cure the breach and pay all the back rent due.

Additionally, a 3 day notice must be properly served in 1 of 3 ways:

a. personal service-Code of Civil Procedure Section 1162(1)- a process server must verify your identity and hand you the document;

b. substituted service- Code of Civil Procedure Section 1162(2)- if the process service cannot locate you, but your sister that is over 18 answers the door, he can hand the notice to your sister as a substitute for you or

c. post & mail- Code of Civil Procedure Section 1162(3)- the last option and probably the most used is for the landlord to post the notice on the property in a conspicuous manner and also mail you a copy of that same notice with a proof of service attached. If your landlord didn't do one of those 3 things, you have not received proper notice to vacate the property.

If you have been subsequently served properly with the appropriate 3 day notice to quit then you have 3 days to pay the amount owed or 'quit' the premises (leave). Since you arguably don't owe rent because you have upheld your portion of the 'contract' you have nothing to pay.

The next step is for the land lord to file an Unlawful Detainer lawsuit in Superior Court. The land lord must complete the appropriate form complaint for UD and have the lawsuit served on you in one of the aforementioned ways. Pay close attention to the day you were served because you will only have 5 days to respond to a UD lawsuit and file your answer with the court. UD is a 'summary procedure' which means it is on a very strict timeline in the interests of judicial economy. After you file an answer to the complaint there will be a hearing on the matter within 20 days . This process is very quick in CA- if I were you I would run to the nearest attorney to defend an unlawful detainer suit if you want to stay in the property while you are looking for a new place. You have a good basis to argue that you don't owe the land lord rent and therefore can't be evicted for failing to pay the rent. There is also the possibility that you could sue him for breach of the contract as you certainly didn�t get the benefit of your bargain!

If you don't want to stay in the property and can be out of the house within the time period it will take for all this to happen, then you have a good chance of being able to have your attorney negotiate an amicable exit strategy from the property.

If you are seeking counsel to represent you in this matter, please feel free to contact me via telephone or email. My contact information is listed below.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of service.

Very truly yours,

Dawn R. VanHorn

Attorney & Counselor at Law

VanHorn Legal

(714) 396-4152

[email protected]

www.vanhornlegal.com

www.vanhornlegal.wordpress.com

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