Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Re: landlord/tenant

In order to effectively delay the eviction, the tenant would need to file the bankrutpcy before both the 30 day and the 3 day deadline. This would buy the tenant a couple extra weeks, until the bankruptcy court grants relief from stay. Then the tenant can fight the unlawful detainer in State Court. I do not have enough information to predict the outcome in State Court.

Re: landlord/tenant

By serving a three day pay or quit the landlord can get into court sooner, rather than later, to evict, and he can get a judgment for the unpaid rent which is not available if he evicts under the 30 day notice (i.e. rent for the time period before the 30 day expires, not the holdover damages after the 30 day expires). In either situation he'll have to file an eviction (unlawful detainer) action.

If the renter files a bankruptcy, it will temporarily delay the eviction action from proceeding forward while the landlord gets summary relief from the bankruptcy court to continue with the eviction. However, that is a foolish thing to do: Exchanging your "silver bullet" of bankruptcy protection against possibly a large number of future creditors for a few days rent is a very bad decision.

Re: landlord/tenant

Follow the advice of my colleagues.