I was served with eviction UD and I checked it with clerks office and it says my case is dismissed? What do I do Now?: I filed in a timely manner my answer along with copies to the plaintiff and sent everything out along with a request for trial. I have been looking in the mail for the trial date when i just decided to check with the clerks office when i gave them my case number they said it was dismmised .So does that mean my apartment has to do the process all over again if they want to evict me ? or does this cancel the current lease agreement. I have not heard from them anything and i just dont want any surprises. What steps to evict me can they take?
Frances’s answer:
Congratulations! It means you won your case. All a defendant can ever win in a UD case is the right to stay. If you owe rent for the period during which the landlord was not accepting it, the landlord will possibly serve you with a 3-day notice to pay rent or quit. Then pay the rent within the 3 days (in the manner stated in the notice) and you are good to go. Or pay now, and avoid the 3-day notice.
You won. You are back to zero. If the landlord does not have good cause to evict you, the landlord cannot evict you.
As another attorney said, you are entitled to recover your costs of suit. However, the work to recover your costs (I assume $225 plus perhaps $150 for jury deposit) is cumbersome, and if you did not claim costs within the 15 days (by filing a memo of costs) you have lost the right to recover them. I would let this go.
Tenant protections and paying rent help?: We received a 60 day notice in January as the new owners of our triplex in LA County wants to remodel. The notice says we need to leave by March 7, 2023. I have already contacted to department of business and consumer affairs to verify we are covered by tenant covid protections, we are. The New owner shouldn't have given us a 60 day notice u til April 1, 2023 but since we have been impacted by covid hardship we are more then likely covered until April 1, 2024. My question is, do I need to send them a note saying why we won't be leaving even though they should have verified this information before giving the notice and what do I do about paying rent? They sent back our February rent check saying they wouldn't accept payments anymore because they were giving February free for a relocation assistance but we are still allowed to stay and want to pay our rent.
Frances’s answer:
It's not enough under State law that the landlord "wants to remodel." Under the Tenant Protection Act, the remodel has to be the type of extensive remodel that will last more than 30 days in order for the landlord to have good cause to evict you.
I always disagree that you should ever write to your landlord and explain the law to him or her. This gives your landlord information that inevitably helps him or her to evict you, for complicated reasons I will not go into here. (By the way, I believe you are mixing up City and County ordinances.)
The bottom line is, if you do not believe your landlord is going to a substantial remodel that would require him or her to relocate you for 30 days, and instead you think that the landlord is just trying to get rid of you so he or she can raise the rent, you should stay and put money together to defend an eviction action on that ground.
Is it true that it is illegal for a landlord to discriminate based on intangible or subjective personality traits?: And if it is not true, then when, in which specific cases, discriminating based on intangible and or subjective personality traits is illegal or pursuable in court ?
Frances’s answer:
The Unruh Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination based on personal characteristics, including the traditional protected classes but not limited to them. For example, the Act has been applied to prohibit discrimination based on manner of dress or hair style (like, for example, in the 1960s if a business didn't allow "hippies" with long hair to enter the business).
If your landlord doesn't like you in general, that's not discrimination. If your landlord doesn't like, for example, tenants with long hair and you have long hair, and he treats you differently because of your long hair, that is discrimination under the Unruh Act.
Generally, business owners are allowed to "not like" their customers. Business owners can even be rude to their customers! That's not discrimination.