Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

See an attorney who may be able to file what is known as an action in ejectment for forcible entry and detainer.

To amplify upon what Mr. Roach says:

People who live in houses that belong to others can fall into any of several categories for purposes of determining the legal rights of the owner and the occupant. These categories include:

1. Tenants, with several sub-categories such as tenant under a term lease, month-to-month (or periodic) tenant, tenant at will, tenant at sufferance, etc.

2. Lodgers.

2. Guests, and here I mean social guests, not "guests" in the sense of a paying customer at a hotel or motel.

3. Trespassers.

More likely than not, the sequence of events would show that the girlfriend's father is (or was) a guest, but facts and circumstances could elevate him to some kind of lodger, tenant or, perhaps, demote him to a trespasser from the outset. It would be important to figure out what the girlfriend's status was. Possibly she is a tenant -- even if she wasn't paying cash rent, she was providing valuable services. Maybe she needs to be given notice and evicted in order also to get rid of her father, whose legal status may be a guest, not of the owner, but of the tenant girlfriend.

In any event, social guests need to be given some reasonable notice to clear out by whomever had the power to invite them -- the tenant in possession, or if none, the owner. If they don't then vacate, they become mere trespassers.

However, in this situation, it may be that the girlfriend is the one with the immediate legal power to deal with her father, and in order to give him the heave-ho, any claim the girlfriend may have that she is a tenant must be terminated through lawful notice and eviction processes.

Forcible entry and detainer concepts might work, but all the facts point to no use of force, and that the father more likely is a guest of a tenant.

Sorry it's so complicated, but the owner isn't going to get much help from the sheriff or police unless he figures out what the process is, and follows it - notices, court (unlawful detainer), writ of possession, then the sheriff.