BG Legal - Giving a renter the boot!

[Rombot]

So I own my own home and rent out a couple of rooms. They're on a month-to-month rent agreement. Although the rental agreement is purely verbal.

Recently I've noticed a few things of mine go missing, 2 of which are a couple of xbox games (Halo 3 and Splinter Cell: DA). Last I knew, these games were borrowed by one of the renters, so I asked if he still had them. He said no and that he returned quite awhile ago. I know he didn't.

I ask my other renter if he had them and he didn't.

I take things further and investigate. I remember the renter that borrowed them recently got FFXIII and knowing full well what a cheap bastard he is I know he didn't go and pay full price.

Come to find out by contacting my local Game Stop that the bastard renter took my 2 games along with several others and traded them in for store credit to pick up FFXIII.

I wanna kick his ass out.

What are the laws in California for this type of situation? I don't wanna give him 30 days as I'd be scared to lose other items and my other renter is paranoid that he may lose items as well. At max I'd be willing to give him 2 weeks, but am really wanting to give him 3 days.

Three-day notice
A landlord can use a written three-day notice (eviction notice) if the tenant has done any of the following:
•Failed to pay the rent.
•Violated any provision of the lease or rental agreement.
•Materially damaged the rental property (“committed waste”).
•used the premises for an unlawful purpose.
•substantially interfered with other tenants (“committed a nuisance”).

Taken from California Tenants: A Guide to Residential tenant's’ And landlord's’ Rights And Responsibilities.



TLDR: I own house, rent out rooms, renter stole from me, how long of notice do I give to get him out? I wanna do it in 3.

[Benevolentone]

I would approach that guy head on and make him get my games back and to get the fuck out since he isn't welcome anymore. I like direct approaches though and feel like just leaving an eviction notice would not suffice.

[Kwijiboe]

How long is your lease? If its verbal, you can kick him out whenever--if he has proof of your verbal contract or has it in some form of writing, you have to honor it. He's not a tenant and you're not a landlord. So the california rules probably do not apply.. even if they did, I don't think he's done anything that is 'substantial.'

They're just dudes living in your house for a couple of bucks a month, if they didn't sign or agree to some form of a lease-- you can throw their shit out whenever. (You should give him at least a week though... Maybe more. Can't throw someone on the street just because he took your games... Be mature about it and just ask him to leave. If he asks you why, then tell him--although, you better not be actually considering kicking him out for stealing 20$ in games from you... it sounds like you just hate him, which, is a more acceptable reason to want him out of your house.)

However, I don't think you should confront them for stealing your games. They're just gonna lie to you to your face...and nothing will be accomplished. Just kick em out. But you'd better not be doing it because of fucking Splinter Cell Double Agent, lol.

Edited: Added more stuff, didn't bother reorganizing thoughts. I think it's pretty weak if you want to kick him out for stealing 20$ worth of games.

[Azalee]

The "lease" isn't on paper, so even if he tried to come at you later down the road he doesn't have anything to use against you. Just tell him that you no longer want him living there and he has x days to find a new pad. 3 days is a very short time, even if he did steal your shit.

[Pirian]

As others have said: if it's verbal and nothing is on paper then you have no legal obligation to them. You could kick him out right at this moment if you want. If you feel bad then I would either let him live out the rest of his payment or give him his money back and kick em out the door.

Edited: Added more stuff, didn't bother reorganizing thoughts. I think it's pretty weak if you want to kick him out for stealing 20$ worth of games.

To me it's not about stealing $20 in games. It is about breaking trust.

[bluefan]

Edited: Added more stuff, didn't bother reorganizing thoughts. I think it's pretty weak if you want to kick him out for stealing 20$ worth of games.

Don't suppose you've ever had something stolen from you? Sure, $20 is a paltry amount, but that completely tramples the trust between landlord and tenant. The guy should consider himself lucky the cops weren't involved. Thievery is thievery.

[Kirb]

I think it's pretty weak if you want to kick him out for stealing 20$ worth of games.

It's not the worth, it's the fact that he stole them, sold them, and then lied to the guy's face about it.

If he'd do that, what other shit would he be willing to pull?

I'd want him out too, and I'm a pretty easy-going guy.



Give him a week to get out, and keep your eyes on him.

If he's gonna be a bastard about it, he might try jacking other stuff. After he leaves, make sure you change the locks on your doors.

You don't want to risk him making a copy of the key to come back to your place a week later when nobody's home. Sounds paranoid, I know, but better safe than sorry, and this guy doesn't sound particularly trustworthy.

[Benevolentone]

As others have said the amount of money that someone steals from you shouldn't be a qualifier. 20 dollars is nothing, I have wasted far more than that in much worse ways, but that doesn't change the fact that you now have someone in your home that you cannot trust. So you either confront him about it, tell him to fuck off for taking the games or work out something to avoid that conflict, or just kick his ass out. Losing someones trust is as easy as taking the smallest thing and then lying that you took it and is damn near impossible to ever really get back. If he is willing to steal 20$ in games who is to say he wouldn't gladly take more if he had the chance?

[Velgadess]

I wanted to add my 2 cents on the topic but then I saw Benevolente's sig and kinda forgot what I wanted to say....*drool*
oh yea....ok I can see how it would look "petty" over kicking them because of 2 games being stolen/sold. lol they're just video games but it doesn't change the fact about these people's character.

if they did something like that, whats to stop them from doing something even worse? I wouldnt wanna live under same roof with someone who steals and lies about it. what else could he be lying about?

I don't know about renters laws but sounds like since others say you didn't sign an agreement or have any sort of contract, you can kick them out whenever. I'd be grown up about it. just fabricate some story and get them gone. if they need you as a reference down the road for renting a new place, you can tell the future landlord they stole from you. if you wanted to get back @ them >.>

[Rombot]

Yea guys, it's not about the old ass games at all... it's having to deal with thievery that's happening under my roof. Worst of all is that this is a person I've known since Elementary School and considered a friend.

I also don't want to have my other renter have to worry about losing any of his personal items. Keeping him around would just cause paranoia and lead to some sort of catastrophe.

Don't forget there are other items involved, some of which were wedding presents that the wife and I just received. Just can't prove who took those. With the game incident you could almost guess who took those as well.

[Cream Soda]

shit on his car

[archibaldcrane]

shit

This is your solution to everything isn't it?

[Pirian]

This is your solution to everything isn't it?

Black people and black people solutions?

[ZarakiKujata]

Black people and black people solutions?

It's not really a black people solution if Abandon or Miz wouldn't do it.

[Cochise]

Hide your valuables... video the rest of the house... Call the police... they will get the confession since you have the gamestop witness... give notice of eviction... 30 days is minimum notice to clear any pay issues with a judge...

[Blackmagik]

Hide your valuables... video the rest of the house... Call the police... they will get the confession since you have the gamestop witness... give notice of eviction... 30 days is minimum notice to clear any pay issues with a judge...

Within eviction notices, the landlord needs not pay the rest of the month back to the tenant as it would void the lease. That and it was verbal, but i guess giving some of his $ back for the rest of the month would end things there.

[Darus Grey]

Now for someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

All these people who are saying "If you have no lease you can boot him anytime", are wrong.

You absolutely cannot do this, whether you have a written or verbal agreement is irrelevant, according to California eviction procedures you must give him 30 days notice.

If you can prove beyond a shadow that he committed the theft then you could potentially serve a 3-day notice. However what you need to do to meet the burden for this procedure is file a police report, and you have already tainted it by activity investigating, so if the police decided not to pursue it you'd have no grounds for a 3-day notice and could be held libel.

Fact that you don't have a written lease helps him more than you(this is stupid to do btw, get a written lease ffs), because the terms like "Month to Month" status and Agreed Rent are not in writing, and in most states where there is no written agreement there is an IMPLIED agreement in the purview of state regulation.

Regardless of what you think of him, as a tenant he has rights, and you ARE his landlord.

That said there's a 99% chance this douchebag knows none of his rights and will just leave in 3 days never to be heard from again, but if you do that you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit that he would win.
(Cochise basically said same thing ^)

[Cream Soda]

Now for someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

All these people who are saying "If you have no lease you can boot him anytime", are wrong.

You absolutely cannot do this, whether you have a written or verbal agreement is irrelevant, according to California eviction procedures you must give him 30 days notice.

If you can prove beyond a shadow that he committed the theft then you could potentially serve a 3-day notice. However what you need to do to meet the burden for this procedure is file a police report, and you have already tainted it by activity investigating, so if the police decided not to pursue it you'd have no grounds for a 3-day notice and could be held libel.

Fact that you don't have a written lease helps him more than you(this is stupid to do btw, get a written lease ffs), because the terms like "Month to Month" status and Agreed Rent are not in writing, and in most states where there is no written agreement there is an IMPLIED agreement in the purview of state regulation.

Regardless of what you think of him, as a tenant he has rights, and you ARE his landlord.

That said there's a 99% chance this douchebag knows none of his rights and will just leave in 3 days never to be heard from again, but if you do that you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit that he would win.
(Cochise basically said same thing ^)

This is right. If he gets his mail there, you're goingt o have a hard time getting him out without a 30 day notice. I live w/ my uncle and his wife. Well I did, I'm the only one in the house now, she's been kicked out, and he's taken a job in the Bahamas, but anyways, whenever she'd get pissed, she'd tell me to leave and I'd always said "As soon as I'm given my signed, notarized 30 day notice, sure, I'll leave... in 30 days". She'd get so pissed, lol.

[jmc]

Now for someone who actually knows what he's talking about.

All these people who are saying "If you have no lease you can boot him anytime", are wrong.

You absolutely cannot do this, whether you have a written or verbal agreement is irrelevant, according to California eviction procedures you must give him 30 days notice.

If you can prove beyond a shadow that he committed the theft then you could potentially serve a 3-day notice. However what you need to do to meet the burden for this procedure is file a police report, and you have already tainted it by activity investigating, so if the police decided not to pursue it you'd have no grounds for a 3-day notice and could be held libel.

Fact that you don't have a written lease helps him more than you(this is stupid to do btw, get a written lease ffs), because the terms like "Month to Month" status and Agreed Rent are not in writing, and in most states where there is no written agreement there is an IMPLIED agreement in the purview of state regulation.

Regardless of what you think of him, as a tenant he has rights, and you ARE his landlord.

That said there's a 99% chance this douchebag knows none of his rights and will just leave in 3 days never to be heard from again, but if you do that you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit that he would win.
(Cochise basically said same thing ^)

Best advice here ^


Like he said, you hurt yourself on actually proving your tenant stole from you by investigating it yourself (not to mention police probably wouldn't touch it for $30 anyways).

Tenant/Renters are always pain in the balls when it comes to evictions. You can give the tenant a 30 day notice, and after the tenant does not leave you can have them hauled into housing court. In court you both plead your cases to arbitration first, and if no settlement is made you go before a judge. The judge can either tell the guy to GTFO now since 30 days have passed, or tell him he can have a extra month. Now if the judge says the person has a set amount of time to get out, and he does not.......... thats when you can get the police involved for a forced eviction.


............good luck

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Written or oral means nothing.

I would think stealing meats the requirements of nuisance or unlawful activity though. Boot him out in 3 days. Even if he were to bring a case at law against you, equity would in your favor no doubt.