Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: pets

Its an interesting question. Are you month-to-month tenants, or do you have a term lease (more than month-to-month)? If you are month-to-month tenants, then they can change the terms of your tenancy on 30 days notice. That includes the pet clause, however, if you were led to believe that you could have a pet, then I would make the argument that your current pet is grandfathered.

Your problem, however, is this - if your lease did not specifically authorize, or your landlords did not later authorize that specific pitbull, there is a good chance you are going to lose this one. Most leases I have ever read do not allow tenants to have pitbulls or other "dangerous" breeds. There is just too much liability associated with those dogs. Yours might be the sweetest one in the world (and I am a dog lover, so I feel your pain), but the odds are really good that it will be a dangerous dog.

If your landlord won't let you keep him, you have two choices - either you can fight the eventual eviction on the basis that the landlord "implied" through their advertisement that your dog would be accepted, or you can move. I would suggest the later, however, you are going to have a difficult time finding a landlord who will accept a pitbull now that you have him. Contact a local real estate attorney to go over this in more detail - there are a lot of potential twists and turns to this matter.

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