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Neighbor is Creating Problems By Using Their Garage for Their Business

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  • 03-13-2016, 11:55 PM
    JasonCA
    Neighbor is Creating Problems By Using Their Garage for Their Business
    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: California

    Hello,

    Hopefully I'm asking this in the correct forum.

    Currently, I'm a resident whom is renting an apartment in the Los Angeles area of California. Yet, I'm struggling with a nearby neighbor whom is also a resident, but is using their garage for business use.

    According to the Residential Lease Agreement, the garage is to be solely used for vehicle storage and not for personal storage. However, the nearby neighbor is running a 24 hours business from their garage. I normally wouldn't care if a resident uses their garage for storage or not as long as their activities didn't affect me as a resident. But, in this case, the neighbor's business practice really interferes with me living here as a resident.

    For one, they are exercising their garage door excessively. This causes quite a vibration in the building. They are continuously loading and unloading their truck with items and storing them in the garage. In addition, they are performing job related work in the garage. All of this wouldn't be an issue, if say a vehicle was soley stored in the garage unit as is specified in the Residential Lease Agreement. Not only that, but they spend a lot of time performing various activities in the garage too.

    I can provide snippets from the Lease Agreement that supports this too. Or, at least I am to believe if I understand it correctly. It's for this reason I am asking.

    After reporting this anonymously to the Landlord that the neighbor is running a business from their garage, it would appear they are not doing anything about it.

    If the Landlord chooses to ignore what is said and agreed upon in the Residential Lease Agreement, what can I do about it? In other words, both my neighbor and I agreed the garage is to be used soley for Vehicle parking.

    For now, I'll start it off with that question.

    Later, I can provide quotes from the Residential Lease Agreement, and you can let me know what I may be able to pursue to remedy this problem that I have with this neighbor. Needless to say, the neighbor did sign a Residential Lease Agreement that states he would use the garage solely for storing his vehicle. But, in this case, that is not at all what he is using his garage storage unit for.

    Any thoughts on this? Advice? Things I should consider?

    Also, the reason I ask is because I am thinking about bringing this to an attorney to question the Landlord as to why they are not upholding what is said in the Residential Lease Aggrement. I'm firstly trying to understand what approach I should take before doing so.

    Thanks

    Jason
  • 03-14-2016, 12:13 AM
    lill
    Re: Apartment Residential Garage Used for Buisness Operations
    What does your neighbors lease agreement state? Not all leases are the same.
  • 03-14-2016, 12:21 AM
    Taxing Matters
    Re: Apartment Residential Garage Used for Buisness Operations
    The lease is between your neighbor and the landlord. You are not a party to that lease and thus cannot sue anyone for breach of that lease. The first thing I suggest you check is to see if having a business in that location violates any of the local zoning ordinances. If if does then reporting the business to the office that enforces the zoning law might get you good results and won’t cost you anything.

    If that doesn’t work, see an attorney about your options. You might have a claim to sue the landlord for a breach of your right to quiet enjoyment of your rental unit. (Despite the name, the right to quiet enjoyment is not strictly speaking a right to a noise free apartment, but without going into detail lots of noise and other activity that interferes with your use of the property can in some states result in a breach of your right to quiet enjoyment.) Another possibility may be to sue the landlord for a breach of the lease the landlord has with you arguing that you relied on the leases for all the units being the same and expected the landlord to enforce that when you took the apartment. That is, admittedly, a long shot but with the right facts and evidence it can work. Finally, there might be a claim to go against the neighbor for creating a nuisance. None of these are particularly easy and would cost you quite a bit to litigate if the landlord and/or neighbor choose to make a battle of it. Even if you win, you don’t get included in your judgment the attorney’s fees and most other costs of litigation unless your contract with the other party says the loser pays the winner’s legal fees.

    How long is your lease? Unless you are tied into a long term lease, your best option might end up being simply to move elsewhere.
  • 03-14-2016, 12:28 AM
    JasonCA
    Re: Apartment Residential Garage Used for Buisness Operations
    That's a fair question.

    I will pull together quotes from the Residential Lease Agreement, but I will need to gather that up for our discussion here. To be clear, this is not a neighboring apartment complex but instead is a neighbor who is apart of the same Apartment Management. Meaning, the neighbor is in the same building I am and 'should' fall under the same Residential Lease Agreement as my own. There's nothing special about their Residential Lease Agreement that should differ from my own: their apartment is the same size as my own. They have a garage just as I have a garage. So, for now, I'll have to assume their Residential Lease Agreement is the same as my own. The form is pretty standard, so I can't imagine they have some specially tailored Residential Lease Agreement saying they are allowed to run a Business from their garage. At least that is hard for me to imagine :friendly_wink:

    Quote:

    Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    The lease is between your neighbor and the landlord. You are not a party to that lease and thus cannot sue anyone for breach of that lease. The first thing I suggest you check is to see if having a business in that location violates any of the local zoning ordinances. If if does then reporting the business to the office that enforces the zoning law might get you good results and won’t cost you anything.

    Great input Taxing Matters. So I can't look at it as a breach from my neighbor and the landlord...good point. The only thing I can do, is look at it from my own lease agreement. This is large and well know Apartment Complex. I can't imagine that the neighbor would receive some preferential treatment by having the landlord disavow that the garage is to be solely used for vehicle parking as said in the Residential Lease Agreement, but at the same time hold me to only using my garage solely to vehicle parking realizing that we both share the same lease agreement. I have agreed to use the garage solely for parking my vehicle, yet my neighbor has chosen to use it for running a business from it. It seems like that is a violation for the neighbors.

    At this point, I've not informed the corporate of the Apartment Complex. This apartment complex manages many well known Apartment Complexes. Thus far, it seems local management has chosen to not do anything. I may take it to the cooperate level as the next step and to make sure they are at least aware of the complaint. It's just hard for me to believe that Landlords would insist one tenant is allowed to break the rules but then insist other tenants follow the lease agreement? These guys literately occupy this garage from early morning to very late at night. They also load/unload on weekends. I hear constant banging, the hammer going, vehicles stopping by....etc. At first I let it go for awhile, but then realized, they are really running a buisness. They have their business logo plastered on their truck. It's clear as day they are running a business.

    In fact, the lease agreement also states that no company vehicles are to be parked in Residential parking. Yet, they park their trucks all day long in residential guest parking. To be clear, I recall the Residential Lease Agreement states no 'commercial vehicles'. I suppose one could argue if a business truck/van is a commercial vehicle or not in California. I would have to look into what distinguishes one from the other.

    Where should I look for this, "The first thing I suggest you check is to see if having a business in that location violates any of the local zoning ordinances"? Contact maybe who? Is their a standard website for this? That's a great idea though.

    Quote:

    Quoting Taxing Matters
    View Post
    If that doesn’t work, see an attorney about your options. You might have a claim to sue the landlord for a breach of your right to quiet enjoyment of your rental unit. (Despite the name, the right to quiet enjoyment is not strictly speaking a right to a noise free apartment, but without going into detail lots of noise and other activity that interferes with your use of the property can in some states result in a breach of your right to quiet enjoyment.) Another possibility may be to sue the landlord for a breach of the lease the landlord has with you arguing that you relied on the leases for all the units being the same and expected the landlord to enforce that when you took the apartment. That is, admittedly, a long shot but with the right facts and evidence it can work. Finally, there might be a claim to go against the neighbor for creating a nuisance. None of these are particularly easy and would cost you quite a bit to litigate if the landlord and/or neighbor choose to make a battle of it. Even if you win, you don’t get included in your judgment the attorney’s fees and most other costs of litigation unless your contract with the other party says the loser pays the winner’s legal fees.

    How long is your lease? Unless you are tied into a long term lease, your best option might end up being simply to move elsewhere.

    For now, I was thinking about having an attorney send them a letter....just to stoke the fire a bit to see if they would do anything. Maybe have the attorney ask the Landlord why they are not doing anything about the complaints? Perhaps this may give it further attention and have them do something.
  • 03-14-2016, 01:32 AM
    Taxing Matters
    Re: Apartment Residential Garage Used for Buisness Operations
    Quote:

    Quoting JasonCA
    View Post

    Where should I look for this, "The first thing I suggest you check is to see if having a business in that location violates any of the local zoning ordinances"? Contact maybe who? Is their a standard website for this? That's a great idea though.

    Many cities and counties have their ordinances available online. Even if they don’t, they likely have a website listing the main city/county offices and providing some basic information about city government. Look on there for information about zoning. You’ll likely find the city/county officials that deal with zoning matters.
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