All Forum Posts by: Doug Huggala

@Account Closed: thanks for the reinsurance. we offered them cash for keys for the value of 90 days to get them out faster but they didn’t take it. They wanted to stay for the full duration of the 90 days. They will probably go over and we’ll be given judgement and procession.

I get it. There’s no way in hell they’ll find something at this price in this area; we gave them a great deal because we wanted to help out a young family. Big newb mistake. We’ll never do anything like that again. And I doubt they’ll find another newb to rent to.

I’m not feeling “lucky” but grateful for the certainty. I just want these people out of my damn backyard already. 

@Nathan,

Alas, as much as that would make a sounder investment, California is my home state. And we purchased this property specifically because it is just two miles away from my aging mother. We have tenants to help pay the mortgage and keep ends meet, not as a full-time job. But at the loss we’re at now, I’m not sure if it makes financial sense to risk another situation like this again. We may leave the unit vacant.

UPDATE: their freebie lawyers have offered us a settlment of forgiven back rent (2 months) along with an additional 90 days rent free (5 months free rent in total.) 

I'm being told by my lawyers that this is a "good deal" and that any judge in the area would suggest I take it. It hardly feels like a good deal to me; they only paid rent for 5 months. This feels like I'm refunding them for their entire stay here.

I'm also being told that even if we were to win a jury trial, the courts are so backed up right now and the holidays are approaching, we might not even get them out within 60-90 days. Really over a barrell here. Does anyone have any experience doing better than this? Or is this really my "lucky" day? 

Additionally, the tenants seem to want to refuse a mutual waiver of claims. This bothers me; it's usually landlords who don't want this so they can collect back rent. The fact that the TENANTS don't want it makes me suspicious that they already have a lawsuit in their back pockets.

Hey there,

Background

I'm a first time landlord. I have a tenant in a rent controlled unit who I tried working with for several months but unfortunately stopped paying rent. We served a 3-day notice and a summons, which they answered. They are claiming the unit is "uninhabitable" (The unit was recently re-modeled, inspected and appraised within the last 12 months!) and that they stopped paying rent because of that. They never gave us any notice that they had any issues with the unit prior to the answer to summons. They have free lawyers from the  East Bay Community Law Center.

Question
We have our pre-trial settlement conference tomorrow. What should I expect? How likely are we to actually go to the jury trial they have requested? As far as I'm concerned, they have no case. Our lawyers seem to think that it doesn't matter that they don't have a case; a jury will be sympathetic to them as tenants and wants us to find some sort of settlement that allows them to stay on a stipulation or to give them anywhere from $5k and four to five months rent free before vacating. This seems like legalized extortion to me.

I'd love to hear any feedback from anyone who has gone through this before.