Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in North Carolina

It depends on what the notice provisions of the lease say. Leases can me modified by either the agreement of the parties or if the lease has notice provisions that allow changes with written notice. If your mom signed the lease 6 years ago, it is likely that that the lease is now a month to month lease, unless they have renewed it or it was a long term lease.

In that case, the lease, most likely can be altered with 30 day notice...(without seeing the lease, this is just an educated guess based on common standards). Now, once she gets that notice, the law says she can give notice to move out, but that the contract has been changed to no longer allow pets. And unfortunately, pet deposits in North Carolina can be non refundable as opposed to security deposits.

My best advise is for your mom to pay rent for December immediately if she has not. There is an old NC Supreme Court case called Winder v. Martin. It states that if the landlord has knowledge of a breach of the lease, they must immediately file for eviction with small claims or district court in your county (the only legal way to evict someone in NC). If rent is taken after knowledge of the breach, then the landlord has waived the breach. In your mom's case, the breach was when animal control came and she refused to let them have the cats.

If rent is accepted before a court action in filed, she should defeat the eviction. This is a short term remedy and all the landlord needs to do is not accept rent for January and re-file. Mom needs a new place to live.