Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

We are currently a group of students renting a house and a couple of days ago, some people showed up to our house claiming they were the gardeners. They weren't. They began going through our basement and started digging out paint that the Landlord had stored( he also stored a large amount of wood in the backyard). It turned out, the Landlords hired contractors to start fixing up certain parts of the exterior house. It's day 5 and they are still doing construction. The contractors have completely taken over our backyard and have left cigarettes and beer cans outside. I come home yesterday and the contractor casually tells me that the owners were planning to sell the house. My question is 1) do they have the right to send a construction team to the house unannounced and then let them take over for a while? 2) When do the owners need to tell us that they are planning to sell the house? 3) If there are parts of the house that are not done to code, who is liable and what should we do? We feel like we're being taken advantage of and we're quite tired of it all.


Asked on 11/10/11, 5:40 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
George Shers Law Offices of Georges H. Shers

The owner does not have to inform you that they plan to sell the house as the terms of your rental remain the same no matter who owns the property. The landlord also has the right to fix up the house as long as it is done in a reasonable fashion so that there s no unreasonable interference with your right to quiet enjoyment. The construction people should have notified you before going into the basement area since your possessions where there, but the damages you could recover for that are minimal. You can order them to clean up the backyard and complain to the owner that they are taking up more space than needed. But your damages would at most be the number of days they are there times the value of the use of the backyard. You have no responsibility to make sure the work is to code but tell the owner so that he can have proper work done and not bother you again by having someone come to fix it up.

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Answered on 11/11/11, 8:35 am


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