Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

The rules regarding lodgers are very, very specific. First, it only applies to a situation where you are the owner-occupant of the property, where there is only one (1) lodger, where they did rent the room, and most importantly where you retain control and access over the entire property including the room they rented. You fail the test for lodger on several levels - there is more than one person, they did not pay any rent and though you did not say so, it may be hard to prove that you retained control and access. As such, ignore Penal Code �602.3 and Civil Code �1946.5. No offense, but I believe the police may have been telling you that you cannot take advantage of lodger statute, and instead, must pursue eviction through unlawful detainer.

What you have is a tenancy at will, meaning your in-laws moved in with your permission, they never paid rent (be sure you never received any money from them whatsoever, or they may be tenants and not at will). A tenancy at will may be terminated by serving a 30-day notice to quit in the manner specified in CCP �1162. CC ��789-790. Be sure to follow the procedure very specifically for service of the notice. Once the notice expires, you will have to prepare, file and serve an unlawful detainer lawsuit. You may wish to hire an attorney to be sure that the lawsuit is correctly prosecuted as they are very technical, and easy to lose if you don't know what you are doing. Once you lose an unlawful detainer, getting rid of your in-laws will be even more difficult as it now raises the spectre of retaliatory eviction.

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