Tenants and new landlords may ask themselves this all the time. The fact is that many people still believe that they can be thrown out of property just like that. But the reality is that there are certain regulations that every landlord should carefully follow before proceeding with an eviction.
When landlords want to evict a tenant, they have to go to court and file an unlawful detainer lawsuit to do so. This tends to be a fast process because it is considered only a legal formality to the court system.
Legal procedures like these are done via a variety of means. There is a hearing for the intended eviction, and there it is an opportunity for tenants to defend themselves in court. The process in which the case is discussed is called the eviction or UD hearing. The papers required for this hearing are served to the court during a minimum period of 5 days previous to the hearing of the eviction process.
There are various typical reasons to evict a person and most of the tenants that are going through this process know the reason behind the eviction. The most typical cases are as described in the following lines:
Failure to act on the notice to quit or vacate.
Is when a tenant has violated their obligation of leaving the premises before the eviction process starts. This prompts the authorities to act and forcibly eject the tenant from the premises. This cannot be done in some jurisdictions if the tenant has inhabited the property for longer than one year. It is a common regulation that tenants be warned that the landlord does not want to renew the lease for a new fixed period. In this case, the time to warn the tenant of their obligation to leave the premises, in the California jurisdiction at least, should be either 30 or 60 days depending on how long the tenant has lived in the property.
If, on the contrary, a tenant has rented the premises for less than a year, the landlord can warn the tenant as late as 30 days before the eviction starts to take place. For more info on this go to https://expressevictions.com/california-eviction-notices/30-day-notice-to-vacate/ and inform yourself properly.
Notice to quit and notice to quit or correct.
Tenants should know that every landlord has the right to terminate a lease if the landlord can prove that the tenant has failed to comply with the terms of the lease. Sometimes, landlords can reach an agreement with their tenants so that said failure to comply can be fixed in a short period of time.
The “notice to quit” and “notice to quit or correct” are different because in the first one there is no opportunity for the tenant to adjust their behavior to maintain the lease active. In the latter, there is an opportunity for the tenant to correct what was infringed and make landlords change their mind.
Sometimes tenants have the chance of correcting their behavior anyways because the landlord has used the same legal form of a notice to quit and correct for an intended notice to quit. This is in no way illegal because all the paperwork has been presented as notice to quit and correct. This also has the advantage of a possible agreement between tenant and landlord.
Tenants should avoid being evicted or receive these types of notices because this can lead to an actual eviction. If an eviction occurs, these are then filed on their personal records and may cause difficulty during future rent attempts. A record like this can make the next landlord think a tenant is problematic or unreliable.
If an actual eviction occurs…
It is because the lease has not been renewed or it has a major cause that is the consequence of a lease infringement.
The court has to agree first that the occupation of the property should come to an end. Then, local authorities will accompany the landlord or a person that legally represents the landlord. Sometimes Sheriff’s officers go by themselves and make sure that the tenant leaves the property peacefully.
Former tenants now have to remove all of their property from the premises and physically leave.
