Squatters in Calif.
 

My little brother passed away. He outright owned his house and I have petitioned for
probate because he had no living trust. will or power of attorneys.
He had a pension from the VA and some social security coming in.
That money kept the lights on and fed five squatters that landed at his house over the years.
Well, now I just learned that because he never had a rental agreement with these moochers, I can't get them to relocate.
Man.... I have to serve all of them 30 day eviction papers and go to court.
I am not going to stop the utility payments because they are after all people that need a shower once in a while but this is crazy.

One of them actually told me tonight that there is no Landlord anymore because
my brother is gone and I am not in any position to tell her to leave.
She hasn't lived in the house for three months but as soon as my little brother passed,
she suddenly became a tenant. Just venting. I will get it done through the legal system. Pain in the ass.

Sorry to hear. California and Oregon both seem to be on the path to grant renters more rights than the property owners...

Already have. Oregon the first state to impose statewide rent control laws.

Yeah Paul, state wide rent control is a fookup deal. Our dumb ass gov Newsome, will sign statewide rent control that's going to throw a monkey wrench in a lot of owner's plans. We voted against it less then a year ago and we still get it in the ass from the strong arm

Rapewta,

Here's the rub, you can't get them out, at least in CA, because they now have renter's right even if they aren't paying you a goddamndime. That's right, they have more right then owners. I suggest you get a lawyer to help with eviction. You just might have to pay to get em' out, slip them 1500-2000.00 and see if they leave. Single family home? If so, then that's not subjected to rent control. Where in CA is this?

I think there's talk of rent control in Phoenix. Rent control is coming your way gents., strap on your seat belts and go for a ride. What the hell happen to free market? If there's to be rent control, then lets have price control on anything we buy to repair these apts. Go beck to market rate on materials and labor for when the units were rented with a typical 3 % increase for inflation. I am good with that.

I totally do not get how squatters can have ANY rights to a dwelling when you can prove they aren't supposed to be there. It happened to a good friend of mine here in Ga. She got married and moved in with her new husband and they were going to sell her house in a few weeks after they got settled etc, and when she came back from her honeymoon and went over to the house @ 2-3 weeks later, there was a family living in it. She called the police and they came out and said there was NOTHING she could do to get them out until she got a court date. Ridiculous. How does that even happen?

I told her to move back in and then wake up in the middle of night and "shoot the intruders!" .. (sort of kidding)

This siht would never happen back 30 years ago. Its the new America where we have to just give with all our blood.

Can I have your home addresses so I can send illegals to move into your homes with you. You wouldn't want them to be homeless now would ypu?

You may keep paying the light bill, but PG&E will dictate when the lights are actually on.

https://www.pge.com/en_US/safety/emergency-preparedness/natural-disaster/wildfires/public-safety-power-shutoff-faq.page

This happened to my brother in Fremont, CA. He DID move back into his house. With his whole family. They were all living there together, the squatters and him. The scumbags finally moved out.

Sometimes I’m glad I live in the Midwest.....

They did that long ago. Most iff not all Dem run states are like that, like NJ and NY. A lot of other law follow suit.

This sounds like breaking and entering at the very least. You can't just bust into someone's house like that.....I don't care if you move in or not. That's B&E!

My uncle owned a fair amount of property, some residential rentals back in the day. He had one family that would not leave. He had his handy man remove the front , rear doors and removed all the windows, turned off electricity.

They were gone in a few days. No way in h3ll I'd let anyone stay that did not have a rental contract and were vetted.

I would wait until the squatters were out for the day.
Burn the damn house down.

They'd see me lighting the fire at one end of the house...plenty of time to get their crap and git out :)

First, STOP PAYING FOR THE UTILITIES!!!!!!!

They are actively stealing from you and if it is your intent to be an enabler, just sign over the deed to them and be done with it.

Time for major renovations. Gut the bathrooms, and kitchen.
In all reality, Zeke has the best advice here

My brother's home is a "single family home."
In Calif. you can't just shut off water and garbage collection. Squatter rights.
I petitioned for a probate hearing yesterday. I now have a Law Firm on retainer and will call them today.
I think it goes like this:
3 day Notice to Quit posted and mailed to the squatter. If they don't leave then a
30 day eviction notice. Unlawful retainer.
Get a hearing date and explain to the judge why the eviction.
If I win the case then law enforcement will physically remove the mooch.

It takes time, so I can't get too riled up and make mistakes. Hard to understand why a
squatter has so many rights.

Can't do that neither. Must give them notification on the major remodel. if bath or kitchen is taken, you must put em' up in a hotel or pay to get them relocated. Again, that's the law here. Totally pro renter or squatters for that matter. They have renter's right. Fooking BS

I had residential rentals for a long time. While I never had a squatter, I did have a handful of evictions.

I know Landlord/Tenant law very well. I play by the rules.
This means I win. Every time.
I win every time.

Might take a few weeks, but the end result is the same.

Get stupid and do something dumb, like take the door or cut utilities, and now you've lost.
Might take a few weeks, but soon you'll be handing over either a really big check, or the deed to the property to the squatters.

It's possible the squatters would leave quietly, but most likely they know the law is on their side.

A few weeks, ha! Apparently you are unfamiliar with how things go in California. No way they are out by the end of the year, unless you pay them to leave. God help you if any of them are on disability

I know a LOT of people that are selling their rental properties here.

These people are not tenants, they are guests. Tenants pay rent, these people have not. The host passed away, and they are not guests of the new owner.

A few years ago I came close to buying a commercial property in California.
Numbers looked great, should provide a nice income.
Before signing the dotted line, thought I should look into California's tax code.

Wow! What an eye opener. Took what looked like a real gold mine to break even at best.

Stunning scenery, pleasant weather, but no thanks. Too crowded for my tastes, along with the goofy politics and over regulation, I'm not interested in ever having any property there.

So, you're correct. I had rentals when I lived in Washington State, so that's the Landlord/Tenant act to which I'm familiar.

In NY let’s say a home owner dies and the house is vacant and the house becomes a crack den inhabited by squatters. Property goes to foreclosure sale eventually and my client buys it, with squatters. I have to evict the squatters. Squatters definitely have rights in NY and most likely all states.

It’s probably for the best anyway because you would rather have the sheriff do this dangerous work than go into one of these properties yourself

I had squatters living in a rental house in FL.
Evicted the renter, but he was subletting to a BUNCH of others.
County told me I HAD to keep the water turned on , but not the electricity.
I ended up paying all the squatters to leave.
Told them in 30 days you are out with no money, or you can leave now with some money.
They took the money and ran.

Zeke has the best advice.
Frustrating as it is, anything "improper" you do now will destroy your day in court.

(or put up flyers in Compton for a "all you can smoke" crack party) /s

You obviously have a better plan, we'll see how everything works out in six months or so.

But cereal, if i were in that situation I would probably just put the property up for sale as is and let the next schmuck deal with the low-lifes.

Why wait for the invaders to get out..

The thought of selling have cross my mind too. Rent control bill is going turn this place upside down. The last recession was held together by real estate. This time with he rent control bill, its going to get heavy.

Not only disability, but if they have kids, owner's gonna to pay.

This.^^^

Someone who actually understands the law...on Pelican? Stop the presses. :eek:

I cringe at the thought of someone dumb enough to actually heed some of the "advice" given on these landlord/tenant threads that pop-up here like perennial flowers. There must be a dozen of them, all basically the same.

Certain aspects of L/T law can suck for landlords when they get a particularly evil tenant who knows how to manipulate the system. Landlords always win eviction cases here if they are legit and the LL follows the law, though. Always win. Unless they are stupid enough to break the law and get caught for it.

Squatters living rent-free are most definitely one of the nastiest things for an owner to deal with. Someone asked why squatters even have rights? It is because from a legal standpoint, almost anyone living in a structure is technically a tenant. It's just the way that L/T law is written and it's for everyone's protection. It can suck but the stories of evil, cockroach landlords outnumber squatter stories 100:1 around here. So there is that.

A guy I know bought a house for cheap in Highland Park a few years ago, that is a quickly gentrifying area just north of DTLA. It was dirt cheap because of one little catch; the previous owner had started his own religion/cult based around smoking weed, (Rasta lite), and granted a 100 year lease to the cult he'd formed. He sold the house to my acquaintance and took the $$ and bounced, leaving the other losers in the house for the next owner to deal with. It could not be a normal escrow because of this and once again, the buyer got a steal on it.

The buyer was asking me for advice, crying about the cost of a lawyer, etc. Said that the lawyer wanted a $5k retainer before doing anything. "$5k?," I asked..."do you have the $5k?" He did but didn't want to spend it. I asked if he had tried to deal w the squatters himself, he had not. I told him to go to the bank and get a couple grand out and go over and feel them out. No reason for hostility, ( I thought it would be counter-productive), just see if they would play ball. Explain to them nicely that you bought the house and want to move in, you realize that this would cause them to relocate and that you want to compensate them for this.

For less than $2k, (I think it was $1200), they all packed up their bongs and scampered away to the next place. Hella cheaper than the lawyer and more effective. If it hadn't worked, he would have had to move on to other tactics but every one of them would have been more expensive and taken longer. Sometimes pragmatism works out. "You can leave w $$ or leave w nothing...up to you," seems to work for landlords a lot.

And L/T laws exist everywhere, it is by no means a CA. specific problem, as this thread illustrates.

Its easy to sit on CA, its all. That said, we do have some pretty screwed up laws that protect renters.

It takes money to get rid of someone. You are correct, pay now or pay more later. Still, renters aren't stupid, especially the bottom of barrel ones. They want more then a couple thousand to leave now. Word has gotten out.

You are ignorant of how much worse the laws are here than anywhere else. Apparently you missed Dantilla's second post, where he said he considered buying rental property, until he read up on the laws in California and discovered how much worse it is here for landlords, bad enough to make a deal that appears okay into a losing proposition.

Just watch what happens to the rental market in California over the next few years, as it goes from bad to worse.

the OP's central problem is he is not the legal owner (yet)

so, either let the lawyer clear that up or toss some tear gas in thru a window, then pick them off as they run out

Which makes me wonder if he has any duty to keep the utilities current. These are the questions I would be asking my attorney .

If he is declared the executor of the estate, yes.

Can ya still squat wif broken knees? Meet yer new housemate :)

edited....I meant to say...who is yer new housemate?

Apparently, Paris has some squatter friendly laws as well. At least if you believe that Kevin Costner movie where he was a mechanic.

He came home to find a large immigrant family living in his crib. They told him he couldn’t throw them out until spring as it was winter. And even if he went to the cops, they wouldn’t evict squatters as it was cold out.

Costner explained to them that he wouldn’t go to the cops, he’d just bust a cap up in their ass. Then later reconsidered and let them stay. They became his alibi I think when he went and killed some other people, so it was a win for everyone!

Ahh, the movies!!

what area of CA?

If I walk into my house and there are people there that I did not invite into my home I can shoot them and am 100% protected by the law. Just sayin’.....