Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Real Property

This matter depends on the sequence of events, which I'd prefer to not get into. I'm sure you have an attorney who has intimate knowledge of the case. If the tenant had been served with a three-day notice to pay and had no rental agreement and has not paid, he should no longer be living there. Good luck!

Re: Real Property

Tenants' leases survive the sale of the property. If the tenant's deal with the former owner can in any way be characterized as a lease, or any other kind of arrangement giving him a temporary possessory interest in the property, that possessory right is superior to your rights, and you are simply a new landlord and will have to wait until the lease (or whatever) expires to take possession.

A tenant's agreement with the owner to purchase the property is not, however, a lease. It is only (at most) a contract, more likely only an option, to acquire the property, and if the tenant has defaulted on it, he has no further rights under it.

In this case, the former owner and the tenant seem to have agreed to convert a purchase deposit into a lease prepayment. If the prepayment has been exhausted and not extended by some other deal, the tenant's lease has already expired and you as his new landlord would be in a position to being eviction procedures by giving a notice to quit then filing an unlawful detainer suit if the notice goes unheeded.

I'd say the seller should not win the unlawful detainer suit because he is no longer the owner and is not entitled to possession - you as the new owner are the person who properly ought to be the plaintiff in the UD lawsuit. However, this technicality may go unnoticed by the defendant and the judge. Still, you should be prepared to carry out your own eviction procedures if you are satisfied that the tenancy has expired.