Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: 3 day pay or quit

Follow Mr. Gibbs' advice.

Re: 3 day pay or quit

Unfortunately, your situation has no really good solutions. First, if you do not pay the rent demanded in the notice (assuming the notice is correct) within the three days, you will then probably be served with an eviction lawsuit. In the lawsuit, the landlord will demand possession of the property, the past due rent and late fees (if any are provided for in the lease) and his attorneys fees (if provided for in the original lease). When you are served, you will have 5 days to respond. The matter will then be set for trial - usually within a few weeks. By then you may have moved out. If you don't file a response to the lawsuit, you will then be "defaulted" and in a week or so, the landlord might be able to evict you. Again, this is probably outside your two-week window. The problem under either scenario, or even if you leave in the three days is that he is still going to sue you for the rent you haven't paid. Leaving during the three days will at least avoid an unlawful detainer lawsuit being filed against you (which might make it harder to rent in the future) and will slightly reduce what you owe to the landlord, but you'll probably still get sued for the unpaid rent. The spider, heating and AC issues may or may not rise to the level of a habitability issue which could then give you a possible defense to eviction, but you'll need to review the facts with a local attorney to make that determination. Good luck, and one option you might try is contacting the landlord to try and work out a settlement since he knows he probably cannot get you out in two weeks by eviction.

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