(Help) Tenant Eviction With No Lease - Oakland, CA

[Andrew Frank]

Hi All,

New to the forums but thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide. 

BACKGROUND: 

• Goal: Evict tenants and sell property
• Unit Type: Duplex (Non-owner occupied)
• Lease Date: Rented since 2010
• Tenants ON lease: All have slowly provided notice and vacated, but new tenants have taken their place via friends/craigslist (new tenants were NOT added to lease) however I was advised they had moved in.
• Tenants NOT on lease: Have been paying rent directly to me via the longest serving tenant of five years who pays the full amount in check format. The longest standing tenant has resided at the unit since 2014, but again they are not on the lease.

Question(s):

1. Is providing 60 days notice to vacate sufficient?
2. Will I need to leverage the Ellis Act?
   1. Is this possible?
3. Do I need the Ellis Act or Just Cause to evict tenants since none are on the lease?
4. Is there an implied contract with myself and the tenants since I accepted payment from them?
   
   1. All original tenants vacated 2+ years ago

Thank you in advance!

[Arlen Chou]

@Andrew Frank this sounds like a very bad situation. How did people not on the lease end up living there? Where you aware of this while it was happening?  Did you not have a clause in your lease with the ORIGINAL tenants that something like this is not allowed? At this point, if it sounds like the original tenants have been gone for a long time so my question is more to understand how this happened than anything else. I believe that by accepting their rent checks you have inadvertently acknowledged these people as your NEW tenants. So I don't think you can evict them for NOT being on the original lease. You probably need to create a new lease based upon the original lease you had with the previous tenants and get the new people to sign.  You should definitely reach out to a local attorney that handles these types of issues and get some guidance, but I don't think eviction is going to be possible unless you have "just cause".