[quote=moneymaker]When I got married my wife moved in with me, I had a lease. The management pressed for her to “be put on the lease”. We ignored them. They eventually stopped asking, maybe they realized they had no legal ground to stand on. So just to let you know if she marries said boyfriend there is nothing you can do about him living there, just another point of view. I believe this law would also apply to caretakers.[/quote]
From my internet googling – it appears that the legality varies from state to state. In CA – I’ve seen two legal sites that state that if the person stays for 30 days they are now a de-facto tenant or subtenant. I saw that in NJ or NY (forgot which) it’s strictly a number of people thing – folks can rotate through and the landlord may have no clue who the current tenants are.
The problem in California is that if a houseguest becomes a sub-tenant or de-facto tenant -they have all the rights of a tenant – in that it gets hard to evict them. So someone I don’t know, someone I didn’t screen, someone who could be cooking meth or worse… could be living there and I’d have to go through eviction to get them out. And I wouldn’t have a legal agreement with them (rental agreement/lease) so the rules aren’t laid out. Eviction gets expensive…
You say there’s nothing I can do if he moves in at the permission of my tenant – that’s not true. She’d be in violation of her lease and I could give a) 3 day notice to remedy or quit. (she could kick him out – remedy, or vacate- quit).
I’m not a total jerk… I’m trying to figure out the balance here… how to not have someone with “tenant” rights who I didn’t rent to, didn’t screen, etc. But I’m not trying to tell her who to date, etc… If he lives elsewhere they can spend some nights there – spread the love around…. rather than put me in a legally iffy place of having tenant rights given to someone I have no legal contract with.
If it matters – we cut her a break in rent in part because it was ONE person. The lease is clear that it is for her use, and her use alone. Houseguests and/or family members are only transient visitors.
