Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

We had been renting a room from a friend and her boyfriend until 2 days ago when we arrived at home to find the lock purposefully broken by the boyfriend. He refused entry to us and we have still not been able to access our things. We have not been given any kind of notice or any real reason. Today he tells me that we must come between 2 and 4 pm and that if we do not have the police as an escort we will be denied entry. Do we have any recourse? Do we have to bring the police? Are we bound to his time schedule?


Asked on 4/02/10, 12:02 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

David Gibbs The Gibbs Law Firm, APC

You may have been illegally evicted from the property. If you payed rent to them at any time since moving in, you are a tenant and they cannot summarily lock you out of the property. The problem is that you have two courses of action - comply with their demands, get your property back and just be done with them. Alternatively, you can sue them in State Court and try to get an order forcing them to allow you back into the property, and requiring them to legally evict you. The difficulty with the second option (and it's clear that is probably the only way they are going to let you in on anything other than their schedule) is that it will cost you a substantial amount of money, and will take time to proceed through the Courts. You would be well advised to contact a local attorney who handles landlord-tenant matters, and see if s/he would be willing to write a strongly worded letter threatening damages for illegal eviction from the property, and then negotiate a mutual time to recover your property.

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Answered on 4/10/10, 10:23 am


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