I have a question about eviction?

Question

My husband, 2 kids & I moved in with my grandmother 12 yrs ago to keep her from being put in a conv. hospital after she got sick. The deal was I would provide home care for her in exchange for rent. All was fine untill last year when her sister (who she never got along with) suddenly starts coming around & taking her to her house for visits. I thought it was OK, untill my grandma all of a sudden decided I was treating her wrong & was taking advantage of her & she moved out & moved in with her sis & brother in law. They wanted us to move out. It took us a couple of months, but we bought our own house & moved out, but we still had our stuff in the garage. we moved a few hours away & it was hard to get back there. I found out today that they threw away all of our stuff. We were never evicted, never given any notices of any kind, never told anything. My question is can she legally throw away all my stuff? It hasn't been that long since we moved out that we left the stuff there.

I live in California & she had it put in her will that after she died we would get the house.

Answer 1

no, legally she shouldnt of thrown your stuff away, since you didnt have a specific agreed upon time for you to move it,,,,,, nor did she give you any notice
but, unless you want to file and take your grandmother to civil court, there isnt much you can do about it

Answer 2

First of all, they did not need to evict you, as you found another home and voluntarily moved out. Whether or not they evicted you legally has no relevancy to their right to dispose of your property. Secondly, whether or not grandmother has indicated in her will that you are to receive the house also has no bearing on anything. A will becomes effective only upon the death of the testator, and from what you have stated here, grandmother is still alive.
Finally, according to the California Civil Code, Section 1965, where a tenant leaves property after the tenancy terminates, the landlord must surrender the property if the former tenant so requests in writing within 18 days of vacating the premises. Even though you had no written lease, you were essentially a month-to-month tenant, who provided care in exchange for rent.

Answer 3

This is sort of a gray area, but I would think that no she should not be allowed to legally throw everything away unless she can prove she had asked you to get the stuff out. But since you did live there with her for so many years, maybe you should just let it go. She is old after all, and what is the point in making her upset. Material things can be replaced but when she is gone, she is gone forever. Life is too short to be so concerned about material objects. I know it hurts that she (or maybe her sister) threw out your stuff. I hope you are able to patch things up! :)

Answer 4

If your stuff is stolen you might be able to get it back if you have pictures or some other form of proof that what you say you had in the garage was really there and now thrown away.

I don't think she had any legal right to throw it away but I think it will be difficult to prove that you had anything there to begin with. Also, was there any written agreement with anyone about the items you left in the garage--as to when you were coming back to get them or not to treat the items as trash? I think it will be really difficult for you to get any relief for your loss. I don't know if its worth the cost of a lawsuit....especially if the cost of the items that were thrown out were not extremely valuable (which I doubt they were since you left them in a garage). Good luck.

Answer 5

The residency Tribunal allows a "landlord" to give 28 days notice to vacate.Any non perishable goods have to be kept by the landlord for a further 28 days,in that time the landlord has to make all reosanable attempts to contact the tenant to allow for the goods to be collected. If that fails he may dispose of the goods.

Answer 6

Unless the answerer knows what state you live in, please don't take his or her advice. This is an issue determined by your state's landlord-tenancy laws. Without knowing what state you are in and what the laws of that state are regarding evictions, the advice you receive here is useless. I will point out that you don't say you ever had any ownership interest in your grandmother's house. That is probably relevant information as well. None of the foregoing is to be construed as legal advice.

Answer 7

From what I understand, you didn't have a lease, your grandmother was not your landlord, so they did not need to go through the process of giving notice before evicting. Sorry!

Regarding your property, your only recourse, should you decide to proceed would be to go to small claims court for the value of your property that was disposed of.

Answer 8

Your question falls within civil law as opposed to criminal. I think the police would tell you to contact a lawyer and pursue the issue via civily. Depending on the value of items disposed of, it would most likely end up in small claims court.

Answer 9

They do NOT have legal rights to throw your property away without proper notice to you! If they did not WRITE out an agreement concerning your property and when you were to get it.. then legally you can take them to small claims.. unfortunately courts only allow up to 5grand in most small claims.

Answer 10

Probably not. You could sue in small claims court, or tell them you want the cash value for the stuff that was thrown out. Or turf their lawn, use their address for nefarious purposes or get revenge.