All Forum Posts by: Christopher Olsen

There is no lease or rental agreement. The person had been staying at the house since September when my dad died in January. Has not made much effort to find a place to live in spite of my brother and I telling her that we want to put the house up for sale at the first available opportunity, which would hopefully be this July when we are named administrators to the estate. 

Our probate lawyer has told us that we cannot enter into any contract (i.e. rental agreement) regarding the house since we do not actually own it yet. If the terms "grey area" and "in limbo" were in the dictionary, there should be a picture of me and my brother next to it. 

I emailed my probate lawyer today and he said to keep paying them. Of course, for him the issue was that if she stops paying then they would put a lien on the house. 

My thought was that by making her pay some of the bills, she might be inclined to move out since she is getting a pretty good deal right now - Recently remodeled 3br/2ba, rent free all utilities paid. 

And I can't give her notice, apparently, because I do not actually own the house yet. Our probate hearing is not until July. 

OK, so am an heir to a property that belonged to my father. Probate has not started.

Waiting for the courts to reopen so my brother and I can actually own the house and sell it. There is a person living in the house who is not paying rent and does not want to leave. You can read about it here and here. 

But there's more. I am paying a little over $450 a month out of my own pocket for gas, electricity, water, sewer, garbage, gardener, and insurance. They are all still in my father's name, but I get the bills and pay them.

The only thing I'm not paying is cable and internet because those are not essential. 

I know some of these bills would need to be paid if she was living there or not - like taxes and insurance. Other's are necessary to maintain the value of the house, like the gardener.

But I have been advised to pay all the bills in order to keep her name from being on anything so that if it ends up in court, my case for evicting her will be easier to win. Is that true, or does it not matter?

What would happen if I informed the utility companies that my father was deceased and told her to put the bills in her name if she still wanted those services?

I think the moratorium on evictions was about evicting people, not stuff. 

That could take until next year. In CA, all evictions are suspended until 90 days after the emergency ends, whenever that may be. I can give her notice, I just can't do anything about it. 

Cash for keys is hopefully going to be the main plan. The rent idea was just to give her added incentive to move. The deal with this lady is that she was once rather well to do. She and her first husband lived on our street when I was a kid. Now she is divorced and not so well-to-do, but likes playing the part of this sweet old lady living in a newly remodeled 3/2 house and a gardener. Lots of siblings and adult children who live locally. 

But my brother and I want to sell the house as soon as we are able to do so. 

I was actually planning to give the 30 day notice at the same time the rent goes into effect. AND was planning to inform her in writing that I was going to do these things 60 days before I did either. This, along with a cash-for-keys offer, might hopefully be enough to convince her that moving in with any one of the several immediate family that live locally might be the best option. Better than playing house at my expense. 

Yesterday I posted this question, but it was never answered because my original post was long and wordy. So here is the less wordy version of my question. My apologies. 

Let's say you acquire a house where there is a tenant at will who has no rental agreement and is paying zero rent. The market rate for this property is $2000-2500 a month. You are also covering all utilities.

This happened because the previous owner/resident let her live there for free and was quite right in the head and then died, and you were either dumb enough to purchase the property or unlucky enough to inherit it (in this case, the latter).

The tenant gets $900 a month social security, but is probably not too old to work.

Can the new owner raise her rent from zero to $2000 a month? Obviously, she cannot pay that amount. But will she still owe that money after she is, at some point, legally evicted? 

For argument's sake, let's assume that this person is an otherwise respectable individual who probably does not want her credit to get any worse than it already is from being evicted and further in debt.

Thank you.

She's not a lowlife druggie or a criminal (as far as I know), but she went from being somewhat well-to-do to being very low income due to various personal, financial, and professional decisions. My brother and I actually knew her when we were little. They lived down the street and she and her husband were the big spenders of the neighborhood.  Now she tells us that she can't afford her own place because she is saddled with credit card debt. Based on other things she has told me, she probably started taking social security when she was younger than she should have and is now realizing that $900 a month isn't enough to live on in California. 

All of this is why I think that the cash-for-keys might work. But my big question, more than anything is whether or not we can charge her rent if she does not take the cash for keys, and if she would owe us that money after being evicted. I don't think she wants to go through that process any more than we do, but I also fear that she might try to milk this for all it is worth unless there are clear consequences for doing so. 

The renting out the room idea was actually semi-endorsed by our attorney. The fun part is that I teach at an art school where I have some really scary looking, tatted and pierced co-workers who happen to have MA's in theater and wouldn't mind a fun gig over the summer.