Question: A resident at my property was taken to the hospital and passed away. Since the lease requires a 30-day notice, what is the law as far as reimbursement of the deposit?
Answer: When a tenant passes, the month-to-month tenancy is terminated 30 days from the date of the decedent’s last rent payment. Therefore, you have 21 days from that date to account for the security deposit assuming that you have taken over possession of the unit. If anyone else is claiming a right to possession, you would need to go through the eviction process.
Ted Kimball
Kimball, Tirey & St. John LLP
Question: We rent garages out to our residents. One of the residents moved a bed and some furniture in the garage and we believe someone is sleeping there. What can we do to make sure we do not have any issues with the use of the garage as a bedroom?
Answer: If you have a separate month-to-month agreement for the garage, you can choose to terminate the garage rental with a 30-Day Notice, or you can serve a notice to Perform Conditions or Quit if the garage was to be used for storage purposes only. This could be more difficult to prove in court. If the garage rental is part of the tenant’s residential lease, then you can serve a notice to perform conditions and/or covenants or quit, requiring them stop using the garage for residential purposes. If they fail to comply, you would need to prove that they were in fact using the garage for an unauthorized purpose. The use of the garage as living quarters would also violate local and state laws, which could also be used as grounds for eviction.
Question: My resident is not parking in his assigned parking space on the property. Can we issue him a parking citation for parking in the wrong place?
Answer: No, you cannot issue a parking citation. Only the local traffic enforcement agency has the ability to issue parking citations. You can either issue a notice to perform covenant or quit if the resident is violating your parking rules, or tow the resident’s car.
Kimball, Tirey & St. John LLP is a full service real estate law firm representing residential and commercial property owners and managers. This article is for general information purposes only. Laws may have changed since this article was published. Before acting, be sure to receive legal advice from our office. If you have questions, please contact your local KTS office. For contact information, please visit our website: www.kts-law.com. For past Legal Alerts, Questions & Answers, and Legal Articles, please consult the resource library section of our website.