Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
After I gave a 30 day notice and an email explaining how happy I was with my property management, they told me we needed to schedule a walk through. I told them I would let them know an appropriate time and date.
Upon arriving at my apartment after staying at my new one for 2 days I noticed they had already done the walkthrough, giving me no time to fix anything or clean up. Most importantly, they had absolutely no permission, written, verbal or email to enter the property.
What can be done about this?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Probably nothing. The landlord doesn't need permission to enter your apartment; he/she/it needs only to give "reasonable" advance notice, which is defined in the law as 24 hours under ordinary circumstances. So, while the inspection done by the landlord alone wasn't a walkthrough (which I would suppose you can still schedule???), it does not appear to have been done in violation of any duty or restriction. You are entitled to prior notice of a landlord inspection, to be sure; your recourse here is perhaps limited to inquiring whether they made any attempt to give such notice. Unless the lease specifies otherwise, I'd think notice could be given by telephone call, someone coming to your door, etc.