Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California
My landlord insists on receiving his mail at the address that I rent from him.
This is a property that used to be his residence and the rear building a office that he ran his contracting business from. Fast forward he rents to me, and I on a daily basis wondering when he will show up? If he gets the mail he only sees his mail and has opened and lost pieces of mail that were not his. He supplies the rear house with their own mailbox ( seperate address) but at my rental there is just one box and he continues to get mail for his business and personal here at this location. The utilities are in my name. I pay rent why do I have to deal with this. It's a daily thing. He is the only one that has mail problems. He goes sometimes weeks before he comes to collect it. Which of course can't remain in box so I become so agent. It sucks. He lives 2 miles away with his mom, it's even a block from a United States post office where he could rent a BOX!!! How do I get my privacy back? How do I get him to see what he is doing is an imposition and not wise for anyone! Help
1 Answer from Attorneys
Tell him it needs to stop. He is not a legal resident at that address and therefore opening the mail box and removing mail there is a federal offense. Tell him you are not going to bother the Post Office about it (they are very unlikely to do anything about it anyway - not every crime warrants a response), but if he does not stop getting mail there (within a reasonable time) you are going to collect any mail not addressed to you from that box, write "return to sender - no such person at this address" on it, and put it in a mail collection box.