Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: 2 year old Eviction

Your ex-girlfriend's bankruptcy will not eliminate a judgment against you.

There are actually two different things to worry about here - one is an eviction action, the other is a debt for unpaid rent & costs, etc.

Do you know how the eviction process went? If your ex-girlfriend moved out of the apartment and the landlord didn't have to file anything in court to retake the apartment, then there won't be a public record generated where credit agencies would find out about the "eviction".

If there was no court action filed, then there's no judgment against you, just a civil debt - that's reportable to credit bureaus for 7 years after your last activity on the account (probably the move-out/eviction). However, it actually costs the landlord money to report the debt to credit bureas, so the the landlord may have chosen not to report it at all, or hasn't reported it against you, either because they're lazy, or they didn't think it was fair to report it against you, or because they forgot. It's also possible that it was reported to a credit agency other than the one that you checked - did you check all three?

If there was a court action filed, it may be that your name was not listed, or was not prominently listed, so that it's not obvious to the credit agencies that the court action had anything to do with you.

The best thing to do would be to search for your name in the civil case index for the county courthouse in the county where the apartment is located. If you find yourself listed as a defendant in an unlawful detainer action, well, there you go.

You might also contact the landlord - or have someone contact the landlord on your behalf - and offer to compromise the debt. The landlord has probably written it off as uncollectible - so it's possible they'd be willing to settle for $250 or $500 or some amount that would be nice to receive, but won't cost you as much as paying the $5000 owed. On the other hand, this will also suggest to the landlord that you're around and you've got money to pay the debt with, so he may start looking for you.