Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Our tenants have been giving their rent checks to their attorney for the past 7 months (since my siblings and I first acquired this property) and claim they will only turn them over to us when we can agree on a property manager. As you can tell, the 4 siblings (co-owners) cannot agree on a property manager but meanwhile I am the one paying all the bills and I am the one who they contact for repairs. I am basically doing the work of a property manager but have not been established as such by all co-owners. What can I do about this? The attorney we dismissed in January and the new attorney one brother has now say we can do nothing about it. Is that true?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Yes. If the four co-owners cannot agree on who is authorized to receive rents for all owners, the tenants and their attorney are right. So you and your siblings need to settle your differences or sell the property, and if you can't agree to sell, one of you will have to file an action for partition sale in which the court will order it sold.