Hi everybody, it's Andy and welcome again to my office in Modesto, California. I'm an attorney
licensed to practice law in California as well as New York. In this video I'm going to talk
about California residential landlord-tenant law, specifically 30-day notices and 60-day notices.
Now this video came about because I noticed that a lot of landlords, I guess, get into the, you know,
landlording business by just posting an ad on Craigslist, they don't really kind of research
the full extent of what can go wrong. I mean, to be fair, in the vast majority cases things don't
go wrong. Most tenants are honest people. They pay the rent on time, they follow the rules, etc. So the
typical landlord really doesn't need to know the full extent of what can go wrong, but the thing
is when problems do happen, though, most landlords don't really know what to do. There is no kind of
credentialing exam, certificate, class, or anything like that that you have to take before becoming a
landlord. So I mean, a lot of times, landlords just don't know what to do when things go wrong.
So to kind of complicate things, I guess, landlord law or landlord-tenant law rather, in California for
the residential side is not terribly complicated, but the thing is there are a lot of rules and each
situation has its own set of rules, basically. So there are a lot of proverbial like, you know, i's
that need to get dotted, t's that need to get crossed, and so on and if you don't do that
properly then, you know, you run into problems when, you know, take the case to court, etc. So from the
landlord side, it definitely pays to actually do things rigorously, like to be very detail-oriented.
So, you know, research and getting up to speed on, you know, the requirements, the facts, the law, all that
stuff is going to be essential. So that said, I guess, I do have some qualifications that I have
to give. So this video is going to be residential landlord-tenant law only. Commercial stuff is
similar, but there's a lot of differences also. This video is not going to cover commercial stuff. If
you have a, you know, foreclosure situation, this video is not going to cover that as well. There
are separate foreclosure rules. If you have a mobile home or a houseboat or anything that
basically is not a brick-and-mortar house or apartment or something, like there are separate
rules for those. This video does not cover them. If you have any sort of Section 8 or government,
you know, funding, government rules that apply to your situation, this video is not going to cover
that either. You know Section 8, other types of federally-funded housing, state-funded housing, all
of those have separate rules as well. So there's a lot of disclaimers, I guess, like landlord-tenant
law has very situation-specific rules, I guess. So, the last kind of disclaimer I have to give is not
specific to a situation, but the idea is that if you live in California in a county or city that
has rent-control or, you know, rental ordinances passed at the local-level, this video will apply
to you, but you also have to follow the state rules as well as the local kind of laws and rules,
ordinances, things like that. The vast majority of cities and counties in California do not
have rent control. However, you know, there are big cities that do. San Francisco does. Oakland does.
Berkeley does, for example. So the thing is if you happen to live in a city that does, just remember
this video is not the be-all, end-all. You have to follow this video as well as whatever your
local ordinances and laws require. So anyway, that said, let's actually get started in the actual meat
of the video, why you guys came here in the first place. So the question regarding the 30 or 60 day
notices a lot of times is "Andy, which one do I have to give?" if I'm the landlord? or, alternatively from
the tenant-side, "Which, which one am I suppose to receive?" So, the 30 or 60 day notice kind of
question then, the answer to that depends on the length of time that the tenant actually lived at
the property. So the general rule is going to be if the tenant lived there less than one year, not
one year, but anything less than one year, then the law requires that they get a 30-day notice and if
the tenant lived there one year or more, then the law requires that they get a 60-day notice and
the law in question is going to be in California Civil Code section 1946.1 and
the 60-day rule is going to be in subsection (b) and the 30-day rule is going to be in subsection
(c). I'll go ahead and write this over here as well as paint them -- paint them -- put them, rather, put them
down below and link them for you like I always do. So the kind of follow-up question that I get
a lot of times or the point of confusion that I see a lot is how to actually give the notice. For
whatever reason, I have no idea where this rumor starts, you know, started from, you cannot give the
30 or 60-day notice verbally. You cannot do it orally. You cannot put it in a voice mail. It has
to be done in writing, and if, you know if you're interested in the law on that, that's California
Civil Code section 1946, again writing it over here, you know, paste it and link it down below. So
earlier, we were talking about 1946.1. This time, it's just 1946 by itself. So I,
you know, like I said, you cannot give it orally, verbally, via voice mail, etc. Uh, a lot of times
people will try to give a 30 or 60 day notice by text or by email. Now obviously a text or an email
is in writing so it doesn't, like it satisfies the writing requirement. However you have service
problems there also, you know, if you send somebody an email that does not count as legal service. So
the thing is -- the same thing for text -- you text somebody it does not count as legal service. I
don't have a video on this yet and, you know, I'll try to explain it really quickly here. When it comes to
court documents, legal papers, in order to, you know, basically give those documents to the other party,
you can't just hand it to them, you know, make sure that they get it in some way. You have to
actually do it by specified procedures. So that's called legal service. So the thing is if you are
a landlord and you want to serve a 60-day notice or a 30-day notice, there, you have to basically use
one of three ways. Number one, the most preferred way, is to basically hand the document to them in
person. They don't have to take it, but the thing is you have to at least try to hand to the person. If
they don't take it, drop it at their feet, do something, but you have to at least make the attempt. Number
two, if personal doesn't work, then you have to do substituted and substituted basically is
finding somebody at their home who, you know, you know, is old enough and is mature enough to take
the document. You ask them to take the document, hand it to the actual tenant. You also mail the
tenant a copy and, if that doesn't work for some reason, you can do something called nailing and
mailing which basically involves you just taking the, you know, the notice, taping it
to the, basically, the front door, for example, of the rental property stating that, you know, the
tenancy is being terminated they have 30 days, 60 days, whatever it is to actually move out. And
then for nailing and mailing, have to mail a copy to the tenant's address as well. So if you send an
email or send a text it does not qualify or, you know, fulfill any of these, you know, criteria. It's
not a personal, it's not a substituted, it's not a nailing and mailing. Therefore it is not valid
and if you are on the landlord-side, you will run into very, very severe problems later
on in court if you do not fulfill basic things like proper service of the 30-day notice, the 60-
day notice, etc. So that is kind of what I'm going to stop with in this video. Later on I might shoot
a video on service generally, but just remember, you know, for a 30 or 60, it depends on how long
the tenant has been living there and then when it comes to actually giving a 30 or 60, verbally
doesn't work. Has to be in writing and it has to be served either personally, substituted, or
nailing and mailing. If you're the landlord and you don't do that, then you are going to run into problems
later on if, you know, if your case ever makes it to court. So again hopefully that wasn't too confusing.
This will be, you know, the first in hopefully a long series of videos. The landlord-tenant kind
of space, at least for the residential-side, is not terribly complicated like I said, but a lot
of people tend to struggle with it, both landlords and tenants, so there's a lot confusion here that I
personally think is unnecessary. So anyway that's it. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing. You know,
like, share, subscribe, comment, all that stuff and I will talk to you guys next time. Thanks.