I have been running into situations where residential landlords and tenants have been sending emails to one another to give notice to terminate their month-to-month tenancies. For some landlord-tenant relationships, the tenancy ends without any issues. However, in many situations, there are usually problems. There might be a tenant who has allowed other persons to move in. Things aren’t working out, and now the tenant wants to bail out. On the other hand, you might have landlords who think they can do whatever they want, and they send a one-sentence text to their tenant to get out. I’ll explain what you need to do in a residential tenancy situation.
Make Sure You Get a Written Paper Copy of Any Notice to Vacate
For landlords who receive 30-day notices to vacate from their tenants, make sure you receive a paper copy of your tenant’s termination notice, and make sure it’s signed by the tenant. Although an advance email or text message from your tenant may be sufficient to put you on notice, it will not be sufficient in an eviction or unlawful detainer action if things go wrong. I have had many situations where tenants intend to vacate, but then other circumstances get in the way. For example, many times tenants give notice, but unknown to you, other occupants not on the rental agreement remain in the premises. Your tenant then tries to pawn off the problem on you, saying, “I left. You figure it out.” If you have a signed written 30-day notice from your tenant, you can initiate an eviction action on all occupants without issuing a new notice on grounds that your tenant failed to vacate after giving notice. If you don’t have a written paper termination notice signed by the tenant, you’ll have a very difficult time establishing that your tenant gave you notice, and any eviction action based on the email or text message may fail. A note signed by tenants stating their intent to vacate in 30 days or by a certain date is sufficient.
Landlords who give termination notices, however, have several other legal requirements and restrictions they must follow. The major differences are (1) if a tenant has been residing at a residence for more than a year, landlords must provide a 60-day notice instead of a 30-day notice per California Civil Code § 1946.1, and (2) landlords issuing any termination notice to tenants must provide this language on all notices regarding a tenant’s right to collect personal belongings per Civil Code §§ 1946 and 1946.1:
State law permits former tenants to reclaim abandoned personal property left at the former address of the tenant, subject to certain conditions. You may or may not be able to reclaim property without incurring additional costs, depending on the cost of storing the property and the length of time before it is reclaimed. In general, these costs will be lower the sooner you contact your former landlord after being notified that the property belonging to you was left behind after you moved out.
How Termination Notices Are Served Makes All the Difference
As to residential tenancies, California Civil Code §§ 1946 and 1946.1(f) tell us that notices may be given in certain ways, including any way per California Code of Civil Procedure § 1162, certified mail, or registered mail. Without boring you with the details of CCP § 1162, any 30-day or 60-day notice can only be served by (1) personal delivery to tenant/landlord, (2) giving it to another occupant present at tenant’s or landlord’s residence or business and mailed to the address (substitute service), (3) if no one is present at time service is made, posting the notice in a conspicuous place at the address and mailing the notice to the address, or (4) mailing a copy of the notice by certified or registered mail.
This gets me to my last point where someone may ask, “Hey, is an emailed or texted notice that was a scanned copy of a paper document or an email message with a digital signature sufficient to terminate a tenancy? After all, I have a written notice by email or on my phone, and the notice is signed.” I am presently unaware of any cases on point that have addressed this issue (send them my way if you have any). But when you read the civil code in context and see what the notice actually has to consist of and how you have to give it to your tenant or landlord, an email notice would fail. It could never be served properly per the guidelines of Civil Code §§ 1946/1946.1.Until the legislature authorizes electronic means of service in Civil Code §§ 1946/1946.1, I would not rely on an emailed or texted notice.
Here’s the bottom line. Make the extra effort of a few minutes and dollars to properly prepare a termination notice. Believe me, spending a few bucks to send a certified letter is far better than getting your eviction thrown out of court or being a test case in some court of appeals case.
