Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

We currently are renting a house and have for at least 10 years, This week someone showed up on the property stating he was the new landowner and we had to vacate right away. We never received anything from the landlord we have been paying rent to about him selling the property or that we had so many days to move etc. The"new owner is very pushy and is demanding that we clear our property off a section of the land in the next two days. We tried to contact our landlord and have been told he on vacation for the next three weeks. My question is what rights do we have and do we have to do what the 'new landowner' is demanding of us?


Asked on 5/08/12, 6:54 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

The new owner almost certainly took the property subject to your lease or rental agreement. The first thing you need to do is check with the county recorder to find out if ownership has actually changed. If it has, you need to start treating the new owner as your landlord, under the exact same terms as the old one, and you have every right to require him to abide by your rights the same as if he had owned the land at the time you rented it. If you are on a month-to-month rental, then he must give you sixty days notice if he wants to terminate the agreement. If you are under a lease, you are entitled to stay as long as the term of the lease, and if he wants to terminate it at the end of its term rather than renew it, he must follow any requirements in the lease for that. If you are under a lease with no terms regarding renewal, then he has a right to have you out on the date it ends, but not before as long as you abide by the lease.

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Answered on 5/09/12, 2:17 pm


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