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  1. #1

    Default Evicting a Tenant Farmer

    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: CA

    My parents own about 160 acres of land with a motor home on premises. They've been having problems with a tenant farmer for years who had not been paying rent at all. Finally, fed up, they broke his lease, but after some begging and pleading from him, he was let back on, but without a new lease. However, the same problems occured and he was asked to leave. My parents, exasperated with the situation, I think just get totally fed up and thus forgot about the property for almost 10 years.

    During that time, he just continued on using the property and eventually used the motor home to house some of his employees, who would do farm work and other miscellaneous jobs in return for a place to stay. We only found this out recently because I dragged my mom down to the property to check it out. What we found was a man who was working for the tenant farmer in return for shelter. The man we found said that the tenant farmer, Eric, claimed that the place was his and that for over a year he was under the impression that the land he was staying on was Eric's when, in fact, it was ours. He further added that before him, Eric had another guy stay there for like 7 years. He said that Eric was of suspect character and rarely paid him or others for their work.

    I did research on Eric and discovered that he doesn't pay anyone, not even the electric company. According to some public documents, he owes over 100k to California Edison (electric company), and that because of this, the electricity to all of his accounts (about 7 at the time) were cut-off until payment was made in full. The document then read that on several occasions, Eric tampered with the electric meters to restore power to his residence. I am assuming he had done the same thing to get utilities to the employess that he was housing on our property.

    How do I keep this guy off my land permanently? How do I stop this guy from screwing around with our electricity and water?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jun 2009
    Location
    California
    Posts
    666

    Default Re: Evicting a Tenant Farmer

    Well, frankly, if you abandon a property for 10 years and never even visit it, it's a little hard to put the blame on someone else for using the property. Yes, it's wrong and probably illegal, but if you (or your parents) don't stand up for your own rights, who do you think should? -- Have you really been paying for his utilities for 10 years while he has been farming your property and using the motorhome rent free? Almost unbelieveable that you would do that.

    But, to answer your question. (1) With your statement that "they broke his lease, but after some begging and pleading from him, he was let back on, but without a new lease" - but then they let him stay for 10 years without paying rent, it is unclear what his lease status is. I'd vote for a 3 day notice to quit; but some might construe that he has a month-to-month lease which would need a 30-day notice. (2) either way, complete the eviction process. (3) Take physical possession of the property (4) If you or your parents aren't going to live there, lease it to someone else. Since you don't seem very good at qualifying renters or collecting rent, have a professional property manager handle it for you. Their fees are substantially less than 10 years without a rent payment.

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