Every now and then there will be a news story where a homeowner is not able to force a long-term guest to leave and the courts won’t help unless they go through eviction proceedings. Recently, there was a story about a nanny in California who wouldn’t leave the house. The courts seem to think that if the guest treats the home as their residence, they are residents regardless if they have a lease agreement, pay rent, or anything like that. So knowing this, is there anything a homeowner can do to make it easier to remove a guest without having to resort to eviction?
If the guest signs a contract when they move in saying they can be booted at any time, would that actually speed anything up? It seems you would still need to go through the court system to get a ruling so that a sheriff would force the person out.
I think you are missing the point of eviction proceedings. It’s not regardless of if they have a lease or are paying rent etc, it’s that a court needs to determine if there is a legal lease, paying rent etc. Police officers are not expected to know the ins and outs of contract law. Basically it’s a civil proceeding which needs to be taken care of in a civil court in front of a judge. At the scene the police are usually confronted with two widely different stories and should not have to determine who is right. Some states have a quicker procedure than others.
I understand that the police typically aren’t equipped to make that sort of decision. However, I was wondering if anything could be setup in advance which would allow the police to definitively act when the homeowner wants the person out.
I know there’s nothing like this now, but say there was a registry at the police station where both the homeowner and guest would register saying that the guest is a guest and can be removed at anytime. That way the police would see that the guest is on that list and remove him immediately. Is there anything that the homeowner could show the police which would allow them to act immediately?
How does it work when the police show up anyway? How does the guest convince the police that they’ve lived there a long enough time that they need to go through eviction?
The cops won’t get involved with any “guest registry” nonsene.
I’m afraid if a “guest” wants to claim they’ve moved into/taken up residence in your home – whether that was the deal or not – there’s not much you can do other than (arguably or actually under the given circumstances) cross a legal line of changing your locks next time they leave and hoping they aren’t so vindictive that you wind up in court in an illegal eviction action. You have to be prepared for the worst. The cops won’t generally ask them to show them proof of residence in terms of, say, having bills mailed to that address, etc. and, even if they do, that doesn’t mean the cops will be in a comfy position to drag the person out of your house.
I haven’t read anything about a court order preventing the couple from removing the nanny. As far as I can tell , it’s precisely the opposite - they have no right to remove her until there is a court order evicting her. It seems the law itself is what prevents the couple from removing her.
There are only two ways eviction can possibly go when the tenant refuses to leave ( Plenty of people leave voluntarily). One involves the landlord calling the police ( marshal, sheriff etc ) and that agency determining on-the-spot if the person is a tenant , has a lease, is paying rent, violated the lease, etc. That's not feasible and I don't think it's the practice anywhere in the US. The other way is that the landlord starts eviction proceedings- but the person can't be forcibly removed until the proceedings are over and the court evicts the person.
I assume (**Loach**?) that the police have some latitude to distinguish a guest/tenant from the burglar/trespasser/squatter who gained access to my home while I was out.
I was speaking in general and not about a particular case which was not linked to in the OP. Since it wasn’t linked I didn’t seek it out and answered in general terms.
You are still basically talking about a contract. Verbal, written, formal, informal. It doesn’t matter. A guest registry now puts the police (how are empowered to deal with criminal matters to now deal with civil matters. Even if legal I don’t see it working very well.
There is no hard and fast rule that I know of. Certainly not here. You ask questions like “Are your belongings here?” “How long have you lived here?” “Do you have your own residence?” “Are you receiving mail here?” Yes there is a certain amount of discretion on the officer’s part. I’m not sure anyone wants to give them more power to decide on contract issues.
That doesn’t mean that the eviction process isn’t way too long in many cases. It kept us from getting investment properties in New Jersey. Pennsylvania is much easier.
I think generally if you call the police and report a burglary/trespassing the police will probably arrest the person if they’re still there when they arrive, even if the person is claiming they are a “tenant.” But I suspect most people who call the police in these scenarios essentially tell the truth–by explaining a live-in tenant, employee, or simple house guest has outstayed their welcome and they want them removed. That’s the classic scenario where the police will just tell you it’s a civil matter and they will not get involved.
I don’t feel particularly bad for anyone in this situation. If you let someone establish residency, under really any terms, you’ve essentially taking on a type of land lord role and it’s not to society’s benefit to let you throw the person out willy nilly.
As a land lord in VA I can say that the process is a bit more expedited when it comes to evictions of persons with no legal right at all to be there (say, someone decides not to move out at the termination of a lease), versus having a tenant removed for non-payment of rent or violation of lease terms. It’s faster in the former because the court doesn’t really have to analyze the claim of non-payment or lease violation, if you can just show the proper paper work that they shouldn’t be there (or rather they can’t produce a valid lease covering the current time) it’s a simpler matter.
Some States require you to eventually turn a long term tenant into a month to month tenant whose leasehold cannot be terminated at will (I believe California is like this), unless you’re repurposing the property (say turning it into a commercial property, moving into it yourself to make it your primary residence etc.)
I wouldn’t think a live in nanny should be required to pack their bags and move onto the streets at a moments notice just because they’ve been terminated. This isn’t Downton Abbey; the employer in that scenario has decided to provide housing as an employment benefit and housing isn’t the same as a wage. You don’t have the right to terminate a tenancy immediately, that’s what eviction is for.
Yes, some States it’s a real bear, some cities too. From what I’ve read NYC municipal law makes it nightmarish to remove a tenant, as does California state law I believe some California municipalities are even worse than the State code. I’m not surprised PA is more land lord friendly. Virginia and the Carolinas where I do business are pretty land lord friendly.
Also a strict answer to the OP–if you’ve established a formal hotel and registered it as such and are operating a real hotel, I imagine the law would allow you to remove any guest pretty much the moment their stay is terminating. I don’t believe hoteliers are required to get an eviction order to remove someone who refuses to leave. But again, they are regulated by the State and have gone through a formal process to setup their business, pay hotel taxes and etc. So that’s probably not something a homeowner can do in their own home. I’m not sure if there are special laws for people that run BnBs.
I agree. These mean the same thing, in the context of my point.
I was disputing Loach’s claim that the inability to evict is related to the inability or lack of authority of the police to establish the facts or the law. Apparently this is not correct, and it’s not about the police not getting involved - the law itself is that until proper procedures are followed, the person can’t be evicted. In this case, the judge ruled that proper procedures had not been followed, so the person could not be evicted.
But I think the facts in this case also imply that you’re wrong in general terms.
As above, it’s not about the police not getting involved in civil proceedings. The law is that long term guests (or live-in employees) have tenancy rights, and even the courts will require that these rights be upheld.
A lawyer commenting on one of the networks asserted the opposite.
Basically, Arkansas is the only state in the union that makes “failure to vacate” a criminal offense. Oh and the eviction time? 10 freaking days! Also, even if you’re a day late with rent, they can evict you, even if you get the money and attempt to pay the rent.
And if you want to have your case heard, you have to pay the full amount of the rent to the court. Meanwhile, the landlord only has to pay a nominal fee to have the eviction served.
There should be a difference between someone who has documentation of their residence status versus someone who is overstaying their welcome. If someone can produce a lease document, then the police should let the courts decide. But it seems like there should be some minimum standard that the police should accept–something like a bill with their name and that address.
It’s not a matter of the judge ruling that the proper procedures weren’t followed ( and I’m not disputing that there was such a ruling.) Even if the proper procedures were followed from the get-go (which is usually an notice to vacate in a certain number of days), the landlord still has to get an eviction order from the court.Getting the court order is itself part of the “proper procedure”.
I think Loach’s claim was more about the general underpinnings- the police (marshals ,sheriffs etc) don’t get involved in civil matters until there is a court order. If my husband and I separate and he takes the kids from my residence, the police don’t get involved unless there is a court order regarding custody. If I pay you for a car and you don’t turn over the title, the police don’t get involved.If I sue you in small claims court for the money I paid and I win a judgement, the marshal will enforce the judgement. And if you are not paying me rent, or are no longer performing the job that you agreed to do in exchange for a place to live , the police don’t get involved until there is a court order of eviction.
Note what I said, that an innkeeper could “remove a guest the moment they were no longer allowed to be on premises.” Innkeepers (the traditional common law legal term for a hotel operator) are not generally barred from removing guests who have overstayed their legal stay.
I suspect the lawyer didn’t actually assert the opposite to my statement, but instead probably stated that an innkeeper would need an eviction order to have a tenant removed by the police. Or, even if he didn’t say that, that is probably what he meant. And he would be correct, a county sheriff deputy would generally need an eviction order to remove a hotel guest who wasn’t paying but was otherwise not doing anything that would justify their removal. A police officer in most jurisdictions can remove a destructive or disruptive hotel guest without an eviction order, as they are treated differently from leaseholds.
But we’re talking about getting an order of eviction enforced. Eviction orders are a court order that requires a person leave something over which they’ve been exercising unlawful detainer, and the police will enforce such an order. But a landlord only needs eviction because of the particulars of land lord tenant law. Specifically, a land lord may not just change the locks on someone who hasn’t paid rent. A land lord also may not remove a tenant’s possession just because they haven’t paid rent. It is this prohibition on land lord actions that is the real reason a land lord needs an eviction order to remove a tenant. Otherwise we would just change the locks on anyone who was derelict in rent and not even bother involving the police or the courts, and save a good amount of money. The family that had employed the nanny would have done the same.
But an innkeeper is not so restricted, innkeepers are allowed to change the locks, in fact with key cards they are allowed to deactivate the keys past your check out time and render the room inaccessible. Additionally, innkeepers can and do employ security staff who can go into the room and escort you out. Now sure, if you’re wanting to go cage fighter on them they’ll probably back out and try another route, but most guests would probably leave compliantly when security came to escort them off the property. So while an innkeeper may need an eviction order to remove a non-paying guest utilizing police power, they typically have the legal right to disable your access to the room within their discretion or to use their own staff to remove you from the premises. These options are not available to a land lord, who will get in major trouble for having their employees try to forcibly remove someone or change the locks on a tenant.
at least in CA there is a difference between a tenant and an employee provided housing as part of their compensation.
from here
The eviction law usually requires that the landlord has cause to evict the tenant, such as non-payment of rent, or breaking a provision of the lease, such as having a prohibited pet. If the tenant is employed by the landlord and the landlord provides the residence rent free as part of the employment, the landlord can go immediately to court to evict the employee upon the termination of the employment. This situation waives the normal requirement to serve an advance notice to the tenant. However, if the arrangement requires a rent payment or the tenant still works for the landlord, the regular notice requirements apply.
I was curious about this provision. If my employer provided me with rent-free housing, this would be regarded by HMRC as a “benefit in kind”. In other words they would convert it to a cash value (the nominal rent) and tax me on that as part of my salary. Of course this means that I would have exactly the same rights as any other tenant.
At common law, simply being on someone else’s property without their permission is not a crime, and therefore not a police matter. Disputes about people entitlement to enter on or use particular property are a civil matter, to be resolved through the civil courts.
In many jurisdictions there have been statutory interventions to create trespass-related crimes - “breaking and entering”, for example, or entering on property with intent to commit some other offence, such as theft or criminal damage. But the legislatures are wary about creating statutory offences that leave the police trying to adjudicate disputes over claims of rights to property. The police don’t want to do this and, quite frankly, are not that well-positioned to do it.
A restraining order or emergency protective order (which is similar to a RO, but shorter in duration and is issued by law enforcement. It has immediate effect. Usually it is used as a measure to give time for an endangered person to go through the RO process.) turns eviction into a criminal matter rather than a civil one, and law enforcement should ensure the subject stays off the property.
Of course, the subject must have been properly served, and be given the right to defend him/herself in court. The RO must state that the subject needs to move out. And a judge must determine that the respondent poses a danger to the petitioner as described by law and that the move out order will protect the petitioner.
At this point, regardless of his long the respondent has lived there, whether rent is paid or not, or any other circumstance, s/he must move out immediately or face possible criminal charges. Police should enforce this. In real life, enforcement may be spotty or it may be swift.
As to whether the person in the article above could be subject to a restraining order, I don’t see anything that’s likely to convince a judge that one is warranted. As always, there is more to the story that we don’t know. I’d imagine the homeowner would have tried already if it was likely to succeed.
My knowledge is based on CA law, but there ought to be some version in all states that could criminalize a guest overstaying their welcome under certain circumstances.
Actually that raises the even more interesting question as to whether the unwanted guest could get a restraining order against their hosts and evict them from their own home. (At least temporarily - TROs are pretty given out as requested, for the most part.)