Personally, I am willing to pay cash to get tenants to leave quickly and without destroying things, but I know many others are more frugal - the risk of the judgment against the tenant may be enough to get him or her to leave without actually filing an unlawful detainer lawsuit (aka eviction action).Although I have never been in this situation, I imagine that the seller may not be willing to do more than file a 3 day notice - i.e. file a lawsuit because they might risk being involved in litigation following the sale of the property - remember, the seller is selling this 4-plex so they don't have to deal with this nonsense any longer.Please let us all know what happens here!

To make this short, my employment situation was one I chose to leave due to some unlawful practices of my employer. 

As you advance in RE you may find that you'll be dealing with all kinds of criminals, need to define criminal, those caught and charged, found guilty and paid their dues or a criminal who cheats, lies, deceives, pulls unlawful acts and hasn't been formally caught?

I don't know if the Fair Housing offices conduct stings that attempt to catch unlawful landlords in discrimination offenses, but this felt like exactly that to me.

Unlawful detainer is just another way of saying eviction.

In California, unlawful detainer cases, including the court index, are not public until 60 days after the filing of the case.

In my area, if the tenant doesn't pay after the time frame in the pay or quit, I complete the unlawful detainer paperwork ( which is available online in my area) print the # of copies I need, call the court for a court date, go to the courts and file the paperwork.Show up to court on given date, if tenant doesn't show I usually get immediate possession but still have to file additional paperwork for the Sherriff to serve the tenants.If the tenant shows up to court, the judge usually gives me possession in 10 days , but I still have to file additional paperwork after the 10 day period for the Sherriff to serve the tenant and for me stay on the right side of the law.

A completed unlawful detainer action is $600, $250 of which is the court fee.

from MassLegalHelp:"Whoever conducts a lodging house without a license shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred or more than five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than three months, or both."

It is punishable by a fine not to exceed $250,000 and/or a prison sentence of not more than two years."