Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
In June, we signed a lease with a woman by the name of Stephanie Jane Shaffer AKA Stephanie Jane Bottita. Ms. Shaffer provided us with an application showing significant income and paid the deposit and first months rent with a check that subsequently bounced. She then paid the next months rent with another rent check that bounced. Despite out polite requests for payments she has made no effort to make any type of restitution. Currently to date, we have not received a single penny from Ms Shaffer. We asked Ms Shaffer to just leave and give us our house back but she refused.
We now realize Ms. Shaffer never had any intention of compensating us for rent and is using the system to her advantage in order to steal from me and my family. The checks she provided where all fraudulently written as a method to establish tenancy.
I have filed and served an unlawful detainer, but Ms. Shaffer is using the system to delay the eviction as long as she can in order to maximize her unlawful squatting in our house. With the current backups in the courts, and our expectations that she will try to delay the process as long as possible, she could conceivably be in the house for months.
If we are unable to remove her from our house immediately and begin to collecting rent, we will lose the house to foreclosure and will also risk losing our primary residence that my family and I live in.
My question to you kind sir is this. Ms Shaffer never provided me with any compensation i.e. �Consideration� for the contract ie �Lease� that we entered into. Would the lease therefore be invalid, and is there any way therefore that I can get her out of the house other than the lengthy Unlawful Detailer process.
This is not a landlord tenant dispute. I am being defrauded by this person and stand to loose my home, but it seems like I have no rights. In addition, I would think given the premeditated nature of this crime that there would be some sort of criminal charge.
2 Answer from Attorneys
If you think there are crimes committed, go to the police and try to file. If she is still a tenant, then this is an unlawful detainer action, so file it and seek all available penalties. If no longer a tenant, and you really think you have grounds for a civil suit that has merit, value and collectability, then sue. For under $7500, go to small claims court.
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