That can happen even if it’s your primary residence. My cousin broke up with her free-loading boyfriend, but couldn’t evict him from her apartment because you couldn’t evict tenants in NYC during covid. And while my cousin doesn’t practice much, she’s a NY lawyer who has done some real estate work.
A friend couldn’t force her free-loading adult child out of her house in Massachusetts, because of the child’s rights as a tenant, although i forget the details. I mean, i think she eventually did, but it was a long, slow, drawn-out thing that involved lawyers. (Which is why Maria, who lives in MA, absolutely shouldn’t let the family move in with her, at least, not without talking to a real estate lawyer, first.)
My son and I stayed with a man and his father for 2 years in exchange for watching the father, who had dementia, when the guy did jobs.
We had a key. They wanted us gone so called the police and made us leave. We later sued and got a small settlement.
In my experience, people like Maria are not willing to take the steps necessary to solve the problems. This is usually because the Daves and Cathys of the world spend a lot of time and energy honing their manipulative skills, and are willing to go further to get what they want than the Marias are.
So the question becomes not so much of what can Maria do, but whether she can bring herself to do it.
For fuck sake. Everyone is projecting all kinds of ignorant bullshit on Cathy when no one has even talked to her yet. This is fucking insane. Cathy thus far has done nothing wrong. She isn’t trashing the place and is in fact keeping it up very nicely and doing maintenance.
Stop making ignorant assumptions based none of the facts presented so far. We don’t know a goddamned thing about her other than she lives there. How could she reasonably be expected to think anything other than everyone is ok with the situation?
Just talk to her. She may be a pain in the ass or she may show gratitude and be happy to work out something reasonable or anything in between. Obviously you should be prepared but at least give someone a chance to not be an asshole before working yourself into a tizzy,
We certainly don’t know the situation, but based on experience, it’s best to be prepared. From what we can see, Cathy is the type of person who stays 5 years for free in a cottage from an offer that was supposed to be just till she got back on her feet. Most reasonable people would not take that kind of advantage of someone unless is was crystal clear that Maria was okay with it. Most reasonable people would have moved out long ago or worked out some kind of rent agreement with Maria. Just on that behavior, Cathy (and Dave) seems like the kind of person who would act entitled to stay on the house. A lot of the responses have been based on who we think those people are based on our own experiences. If Cathy agrees to move out, great!, but based on personal experience from similar situations in our own lives, that doesn’t seem likely. Maria should talk to Cathy before taking any legal action, but she should go into that conversation knowing what to do if Cathy is not agreeable to moving out.
No one ever told her it’s time to get going so why should she assume that Maria cared if she stayed there. The place was sitting empty anyway and Maria didn’t want to use it or seem inclined to rent it. Cathy is keeping it up. She replaced the water heater on her own dime (granted much less than rent). If Cathy wasn’t there when the water heater failed it would have been a disaster. Cathy being there means it’s being maintained and someone is keeping an eye on it. Maria doesn’t have to schlep out there and check on things and deal with maintanance. Maria is getting a caretaker for free.
Cathy is getting by far the better part of the deal but it’s far from one way.
What the fuck does this even mean? We have no idea how vague that conversation was. Up until now no one ever told Cathy that the situation was a problem or even annoying. Her being there was harmless or arguably beneficial.
Projection based on way too little information. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an issue but I can’t see anything that Cathy has done wrong so far other than getting a sweet deal and at least giving some partial payback.
From NH law, she’s a tenant-at-will, no lease. So she can be evicted, without reason, but there’s a procedure to follow which takes a certain amount of time. Texts, emails, originally (or event recently) saying it’s a temporary situation don’t matter, all that matters is following the legal procedure for an eviction. I mean, sure, Cathy can collect all the evidence she wants, but should not be surprised at all if her lawyer tells her it’s all meaningless. I’m 99.9% certain if it does get in front of a judge all that will matter is if the proper notices were served at the proper times and the procedure was followed correctly.
From the OP: “But what to do about Cathy? She ‘refuses’ to even talk about moving out. Cathy obviously doesn’t want to lose the house she’s lived in “for free” for five years.”
“She refuses to even talk about moving out” to me means Maria (or Dave) did start the conversation but Cathy wouldn’t even respond.
If you invited her to stay at your house until she got back on her feet what would you expect it to mean? Enough time to save for the 1st/last month’s rent and maybe another month for good measure.? Certainly not 5 years and a refusal to discuss it.
Exactly. If NH law is anything like Nebraska law, this is what it will take. You have to steel your nerves and start the process, crossing all your T’s and dotting all your i’s. I recently did it with a recalcitrant tenant, with the help of clerks in the civil section of my county court. Fees and court costs ended up being about $300. Well worth it. Sheriffs deputies did the confrontations serving the various notices, I didn’t even have to be involved. The judge would have too but the tenant never showed up for either of the court hearings. After the judge’s decision was delivered to the ex-tenant, again by deputies, he is now on notice that he will be arrested if he comes onto my property.
No one seems to be “worked into a tizzy” except for @hajario . We are just providing unprofessional legal opinions on the situation. Obviously we have no personal stake in the outcome.
Yes, the normal person scenario is Maria says “we are selling the place, I’m sorry you have to move out.” But the question seems to be what are the options if that doesn’t happen.
I’m not. I think it would be weird to say, “you can stay there for months on end, but you can’t have guests visit”. And guests who visit turn into guests who stay.
Most likely, once Cathy moved in, Maria ceased to really think about the situation much. She knew someone quasi-family was living there and doing basic maintenance, so she didn’t have to be concerned about that; she knew she wasn’t getting rent, so she didn’t have to be concerned about that. I’m assuming a lot, I know, but I’ve known a lot of people in vaguely similar situations: they all seem to just hope things will work themselves out without their having to do anything difficult. Especially if it’s not an active irritant, it’s easy to just let things go on. It’s much harder to change them, especially without causing friction.