WHAT ARE THE TYPICAL TENANT TACTICS THAT CAN DELAY AN EVICTION?

Copied from a Sacramento Area landlord/tenant lawyer web site.

Frankly, there are numerous situations which will cause unavoidable delays in the processing of an eviction. By and large, the variety of motions, hearings, trials, claimed defenses, misalleged filing of lawsuits against the landlords and other tactics and techniques are found by the courts to be meritless, not well founded, and primarily done solely for the purpose of delaying the eviction process, intimidating the landlord, and spitefully done for the sole purpose of revenge. This can be extremely troubling for the typically careful landlord or property manager in this Sacramento community. 

Indeed, it is troubling for our entire community when tenants or others who exercise little integrity in suggesting ill-fated delay tactics on behalf of tenants will assist in impeding the rights of law-abiding landlords. In the claimed name of providing legal assistance or advice to tenants with little or no merit, only the short term picture is viewed. The long term picture is that as landlords have begun to recognize the cost and anxiety associated with being landlords who are confronted with a multitude of potential meritless delay tactics filed by tenants, landlords are financially compelled to charge more for rent, ask for higher security deposits, more carefully screen and limit the opportunities to rent except to only the very, very, very most qualified and financially secure prospective tenants. This has sadly created a spirt of antagonism, fear and animosity between the landlord and the tenant communities, where there should be a spirt of harmony and working together for the common benefit and protection of all concerned. Essentially, the entire landlord-tenant community is undermined by unscrupulous and unethical tenant delay tactics.

To assist tenants in appropriately and legally seeking to enforce their legal rights tenants have access to free legal assistance from attorneys hired by the Human Rights and Fair Housing Commission of Sacramento County - the attorneys and tenant assistants are present and available right inside the courthouse at the Carol Miller Justice Center where lawsuits for Unlawful Detainer are filed and heard by our local Commissioners, Judges, and Judges Pro Tem. Tenants also have free access to legal assistance through the services of Northern California Legal Services, throughMcGeorge School of Law - Community Legal Services Clinic, and through the abundant services of many attorneys who frequently represent tenants against landlords. A quick look in the Sacramento Yellow Pages will show you just how many attorneys advertise to the tenant community. There are also a variety of individuals and businesses claiming to offer low cost "clinic" type legal services to tenants. 

Because there are so many enterprises and law firms essentially doing all they can - whether in the context of claiming that they are being ethically and morally correct in their zealous endeavors to thwart, delay, suspend, interfere with, and otherwise cause the eviction process to be difficult for landlords, or not - it is imperative to have the services of an experienced landlord-tenant law attorney representing the landlord. If you have retained a qualified and experienced law firm review your paperwork, and properly "cross the T's and dot the I's", you will most often be successful in your goal to have a tenant who has violated the basic terms and provisions of your rental agreement, or who has violated Caliornia law, be evicted properly through the judicial process. 

The most frequent tenant delay tactics are listed below:

1. Evasion of Service of Process: Your tenants will attempt to avoid receiving the service of the lawsuit for Unlawful Detainer paperwork. Although this law office has utilized the services of a high quality process serving company for almost twenty-eight years, which employs trained and licensed process servers, tenants are becoming wiser and more sophisticated in engaging in efforts to avoid being served with the lawsuit paperwork. For instance, they will never open the door to the premises to receive the papers, will actually run away from the process server, hide out, or they will frequently reside temporarily with friends or relatives so that the process server will not be able to hand the papers to them. We have instructed the process servers that we hire to contact you directly if this type of situation should occur; it may be possible that at any given moment of time you will be aware of the actual location of the tenant so that the process server can have the tenant immediately served. Our process servers will make up to five additional attempts to serve the tenants without charging you any more money for their services. Ultimately, if the tenant cannot be located, we shall be required to file a special application with the court to permit the posting of the Summons & Complaint on the tenant's door, and to thereafter mail a copy to the tenant by certified mailing. The anticipated delay for this entire special process will take approximately 20 more days. 
    
2. Request to Set Aside Default: After the tenant has been served with the Summons & Complaint if the tenant fails to file any Response with the court, the law office will file a "Request to Enter Default" with the court. Thereafter, the tenant may file a document with the court claiming that due to "inadvertance, excusable neglect, mistake, surprise, or extrinsic fraud" that the "Request to Enter Default" should be set aside, and that the tenant should be given a second chance to have a chance to go to trial rather than be summarily evicted. The court clerk's office will receive the filing of the tenant's Motion to Set Aside Default, and then schedule a hearing for the matter. Even if the tenant loses the motion at the time of the hearing this will still have caused a delay of 10-14 or more days. 
    
3. Application for Stay of Execution: After the tenant has been defaulted by the filing of a Request to Enter Default, or if the tenant has actually lost at trial, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office will be instructed by the law office to post a Notice to Vacate on the tenant's door. This notice demands that the tenant be vacated from the premises not later than five days from the date of posting. If the tenant fails to vacate by that time, the Sheriff will physically remove the tenant if necessary. Within the five day period the tenant may file yet another delaying motion with the court called an "Application for Stay of Execution." In this motion the court will be weighing the claimed hardship of the tenant such that the tenant may be entitled to receive additional time to vacate the premises; in other words receive a "stay" or "suspension" of the time for the Sheriff to actually evict the tenant. Sometimes the court will grant these requests without even contacting the landlord or the landlord's attorney to ascertain the truth or merit of the tenant's claim. Other times the court will grant a temporary "stay" until such time as a hearing is scheduled on the matter so that the landlord and the tenant may argue the truth or merit of the tenant's claim, or to allow the landlord to establish a more compelling hardship that outweighs the tenant's claimed hardship. 
   If this tenant delay tactic is utilized by the tenant, even if the landlord prevails, this may result in a delay of anywhere from three to forty days depending upon the circumstances.
    
4. Claim of Right to Possession: An individual who has not been named on the lawsuit, or who has not been served by the process server with a copy of the Summons and Complaint for Unlawful Detainer may file a document with the court claiming that they have "tenants" rights (a "claim of tenancy"), and as such they should be permitted to oppose the eviction action. If this is filed you may expect a delay of approximately 20-30 more days.
    
5. Motion for a Continuance of the time within which to file an Answer with the court. 
    
6. Demurrer. A motion that attacks the allegations of the lawsuit. 
    
7. Filing of an Answer to the lawsuit. This is the most common delay tactic. 
    
8. Motion to Quash claiming that the tenant was not served with the lawsuit. 
    
9. Motion to Strike attacking the allegations of the lawsuit. 
    
10. Appeal 
     
11. Motion for New Trial 
     
12. Motion for Reconsideration 
     
13. Appeal