Question about Tenant estoppel - first time investor/landlord

[Ian McNairy]

Hi All,

Happy to say I just closed on my first investment property. Its not been an easy process. As part of the deal we received an estoppel for the back house tenant. After closing we gave 30-day notice to this tenant per California law as the signed estoppel had a move-in date within the last year(and we are moving in). The agent contacted us more than 10 days after closing and said the tenant sent her our notice to her and that it was not legal. Turns out they are claiming she has lived there for over 2 years and the original estoppel had the wrong date of tenant move-in (btw, this estoppel was signed by both agent and tenant). This might be true although we did not receive any other documents (leases, bills, etc) with the sale (even though requested). Now the agent is saying we need to give 2 months notice and pay tenant for the last months rent (per cal code). The issue is we made arrangements to take the house over after the 30 days and to change our plans now would cause us financial harm. We are waiting to talk with a lawyer but I thought I'd pose the question here - can an estoppel be revised or superseded by other evidence (utility bills, etc) after the fact? Or can we kindly tell the tenant, "sorry but you signed the document and we made plans based on this so now you must move out?"