When an oral lease agreement becomes a written lease agreement

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Hey BP,

I have a question regarding what happens when an oral lease agreement switches to written. Some background: my friend is a tenant who has been living rent-free in a unit for over ten years but is a professional painter and has been painting numerous properties/units for the landlord in lieu of rental payments. This has been their arrangement for almost twenty years (the tenant has lived in three of the landlord's properties, all located in California) and from inception there was never a written agreement for this arrangement.

Now the landlord wants to have them sign a lease and write them checks for the work that is being performed, which apparently is to be cashed and returned right back to the landlord as the rent payment. He states it is for accounting purposes. My friend's concern, however, is that the landlord may be trying to formalize their relations so that he may eventually evict them, as many of the legacy tenants in this apartment building have been evicted or "pressured" to vacate for frivolous reasons so that the landlord can renovate and convert their units to Airbnb in order to receive a higher return for each unit. There are 13 units at the property and ever since the landlord began Airbnb about three years ago, suddenly only three legacy tenants remain and all the others have been pressured to leave for reasons that were not of concern for the many prior years.

What would be the potential drawbacks to the tenant should they choose to sign the written lease? What could happen if they refuse and prefer to maintain their original oral agreement?