Borna Houman Law represents landlords, property owners, investors and HOA boards in Los Angeles County nuisance disputes. We act for the owner side only. We are retained when a tenant’s conduct has made a building unmanageable, when a neighboring property is damaging the use or value of yours, and when an owner has been accused of permitting a nuisance and needs that claim defended. We do not represent tenants in any matter.
Key Takeaway: Under Code of Civil Procedure section 1161(4) a tenant who maintains or permits a nuisance terminates the lease by operation of law, and the owner may serve a three-day notice to quit with no right to cure. That notice runs in calendar days. The three-day pay-or-quit and perform-or-quit notices exclude weekends and judicial holidays, but the nuisance notice to quit does not.
If a tenant or a neighboring owner has made your property unusable, the evidence you gather in the next two weeks decides the case. Borna Houman Law handles nuisance evictions, abatement actions and nuisance defense for Los Angeles County property owners from our office at 2530 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica. Call (888) 42-BORNA to schedule a confidential consultation.
A nuisance is anything that is injurious to health, indecent or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property. That definition comes from Civil Code section 3479 and it is deliberately broad.
A broad definition is not a loose one. California courts require conduct that is substantial and unreasonable, judged by the standard of an ordinary person rather than the most sensitive occupant in the building. An owner who files on a single loud party loses. An owner who files on a pattern documented across months usually does not.
The conduct that supports a nuisance eviction in Los Angeles County falls into a small number of categories.
| Conduct | Owner remedy | Notice | Cure right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repeated noise, threats or harassment of other residents | Unlawful detainer under CCP 1161(4) | 3-day notice to quit | None |
| Hoarding or sanitation creating a health hazard | Unlawful detainer, or 3-day notice to perform under CCP 1161(3) where the lease covers it | 3-day notice to quit | None under 1161(4) |
| Controlled substance offense on the premises | Unlawful detainer under CCP 1161(4) via Civ. Code 3486(c) | 3-day notice to quit | None |
| Unlawful weapon or ammunition offense on the premises | Unlawful detainer under CCP 1161(4) via Civ. Code 3485(c) | 3-day notice to quit | None |
| Physical waste or destruction of the unit | Unlawful detainer under CCP 1161(4), plus damages | 3-day notice to quit | None |
| Nuisance originating on a neighboring property | Civil action for private nuisance, injunction, abatement | Demand letter, then suit | Not applicable |
If complaints have started and you are deciding whether to act, call (888) 42-BORNA before the file gets any older.
Yes, and this is the exposure most owners underestimate. A landlord who knows a tenant is creating a nuisance and has the power to abate it can be held liable to the other residents and to neighboring owners for failing to act.
The duty is not automatic. It attaches once the owner has actual or constructive knowledge of the conduct and a legal ability to stop it, which in a residential tenancy means the power to serve notice and file. Complaints from other residents are what create that knowledge, so the complaint file ends up being the central document whether you are suing or being sued on it.
Doing nothing is the worst option available. Once credible complaints arrive, document them, warn the tenant in writing, and then act on a defined timetable.
We draft the notice so that it states the ground correctly the first time. Call (888) 42-BORNA to have yours reviewed before service.
Serve an unconditional three-day notice to quit, not a notice to perform or quit. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 1161(4), maintaining or permitting a nuisance terminates the lease by operation of law, so there is nothing left for the tenant to cure.
This is where most owner-drafted notices fail. An owner who gives the tenant three days to stop the conduct has served a notice to perform under section 1161(3), which concedes the lease is alive and invites a cure that moots the case. The two notices are not interchangeable and a court will hold you to the one you served.
Three further rules decide whether the notice survives a demurrer. The notice must describe the nuisance with enough specificity that the tenant can identify the conduct and the court can see it is substantial. It must name every adult occupant in possession. And the three days are calendar days, because subdivision 4 omits the weekend and judicial holiday exclusion that the legislature wrote into subdivisions 2 and 3.
Confirm which ordinance governs your building before you serve anything. Call (888) 42-BORNA and we will identify it from the address and the year of first occupancy.
It changes what you must prove and what you must file, and it does not remove the remedy. Nuisance is an at-fault just cause in every Los Angeles County rent stabilization scheme and under the statewide Tenant Protection Act at Civil Code section 1946.2.
What changes is the paperwork and the standard of proof a judge will apply. In the City of Los Angeles the Rent Stabilization Ordinance at LAMC 151.09 requires the stated just cause on the notice and a filed copy with the Los Angeles Housing Department. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Culver City and unincorporated Los Angeles County each run their own version. An owner who serves a technically perfect state-law notice and skips the local filing loses on a ground that has nothing to do with the tenant’s conduct.
An uncontested nuisance unlawful detainer in Los Angeles County typically runs about five to eight weeks from service of the notice to a lockout by the sheriff. A contested case with a jury demand runs considerably longer.
| Stage | Typical duration | Governing rule |
|---|---|---|
| Three-day notice to quit | 3 calendar days | CCP 1161(4) |
| File complaint, serve summons | 5 to 10 days | CCP 1167 |
| Tenant response deadline | 5 days after service | CCP 1167 |
| Trial setting after request | Not less than 20 days | CCP 1170.5 |
| Writ of possession and lockout | 5 to 15 days after judgment | CCP 715.010 |
Those are the statutory minimums. What moves the calendar is whether the tenant files an answer raising habitability, retaliation or discrimination, any of which turns a summary proceeding into a contested trial.
A defective notice costs an owner the whole case and restarts the clock. We draft the notice, serve it, file the unlawful detainer and try it. Call (888) 42-BORNA to schedule a confidential consultation about your property.
Nuisance cases turn on records made at the time, not on what a manager remembers later. The most persuasive exhibit is usually a dated complaint log from other residents that predates the notice by months.
In our experience representing owners, the files that settle early share the same four elements: written complaints from more than one household, dated written warnings from management, police or code enforcement reference numbers, and video or audio that was lawfully captured. The files that fail usually have a manager who handled everything by phone.
Surveillance footage deserves a specific warning. Video of a common area is generally usable, but audio recorded without the consent of every party violates Penal Code section 632 and hands the tenant a claim worth $5,000 per violation under section 637.2. Introducing that footage proves the violation against you in a case you filed. Our guide to landlord security camera laws in California covers the configuration rules before you rely on any recording.
Bring your complaint log to the consultation. Call (888) 42-BORNA and we will tell you whether it carries the case.
Timing is what turns a legitimate nuisance case into a retaliation fight. Under Civil Code section 1942.5, if an owner serves a termination notice within 180 days after the tenant complained about habitability to the owner or to a public agency, the law presumes retaliation and the owner carries the burden of rebutting it.
The rebuttal is documentary. An owner whose complaint log and written warnings predate the tenant’s habitability complaint can defeat the presumption on the paper. An owner whose file begins the week after the tenant called the health department usually cannot.
The other route to a wrongful eviction finding is self-help. Changing locks, removing doors, shutting off utilities or removing a tenant’s possessions exposes an owner to statutory damages and attorney fees regardless of how genuine the underlying nuisance was. The only lawful removal in California is a judgment and a sheriff’s lockout.
If the tenant has already raised a habitability complaint, the sequence of your documents matters more than their content. Call (888) 42-BORNA to schedule a confidential consultation.
Where the source is not your tenant, the remedy is a civil action rather than an unlawful detainer. A private nuisance is every nuisance that is not a public one, under Civil Code section 3481, and the available remedies are a civil action for damages or abatement under Civil Code section 3501.
Whether the nuisance is permanent or continuing decides what the case is worth. A permanent nuisance is one that cannot reasonably be abated, and the owner gets a single action for all past and future harm, with the three-year limitations period of Code of Civil Procedure section 338(b) running from the first injury. A continuing nuisance can be abated, and each day of continuation is a fresh injury supporting a new action, which means an older problem is not necessarily time barred.
That characterization is usually contested, and it is worth resolving before a demand letter goes out rather than after. Where the dispute involves boundaries, encroachments or shared structures rather than conduct, our property disputes and neighbor and community disputes practices handle it.
Characterizing the nuisance correctly is the first decision in the case. Call (888) 42-BORNA to have yours assessed.
In an unlawful detainer, fees follow the lease. California has no statute awarding fees to the prevailing party in a nuisance eviction, so a fee clause in the lease is the only reliable route, and Civil Code section 1717 makes any one-sided clause mutual by operation of law.
In a civil nuisance action between owners, the default is that each side bears its own fees absent a contract, a CC&R provision or a statute. HOA matters are the common exception, because the Davis-Stirling Act awards fees to the prevailing party in an action to enforce the governing documents.
This is the practical reason lease review matters before a dispute exists. Our lease drafting and review practice builds an enforceable fee clause and a specific nuisance covenant into the form, which is what makes the covenant provable later.
Owners who want the fee clause and the nuisance covenant fixed before a dispute arises should call (888) 42-BORNA about a lease review.
The following are representative scenarios that illustrate how these matters typically proceed. They are not descriptions of specific client outcomes.
A nuisance eviction uses a three-day notice to quit under Code of Civil Procedure section 1161(4). A thirty-day or sixty-day notice terminates a tenancy without fault and is the wrong instrument where the ground is nuisance.
No. The nuisance notice to quit under subdivision 4 runs in calendar days. The exclusion of Saturdays, Sundays and judicial holidays appears only in subdivisions 2 and 3, which govern the pay-or-quit and perform-or-quit notices.
Not under section 1161(4). Maintaining a nuisance terminates the lease by operation of law, so no cure period is given. An owner who offers one has effectively served a different notice and may have revived the tenancy.
The same statutory definition applies, but the local ordinance controls the notice content and the filing. In the City of Los Angeles the just cause must be stated on the notice and a copy filed with the Los Angeles Housing Department under LAMC 151.09.
Yes. An owner with knowledge of the conduct and the power to abate it can be liable to other residents and to neighboring owners for failing to act, which is why a documented response to complaints protects the owner in both directions.
Three years for injury to real property under Code of Civil Procedure section 338(b). If the nuisance is continuing rather than permanent, each day of continuation starts a new limitations period, so an older condition may still be actionable.
Borna Houman is the founding attorney of Borna Houman Law, admitted to the California Bar under number 352339, practicing from 2530 Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica. The firm is rated 5.0 across 60 client reviews and represents landlords and property owners only. We appear in the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, the Santa Monica Courthouse and the Pasadena and Long Beach courthouses on Los Angeles County unlawful detainer and property matters.
If a tenant’s conduct has made your building unmanageable, or a neighboring property is interfering with yours, call (888) 42-BORNA to schedule a confidential consultation. If you have already served a notice, bring it with you, because the form of the notice usually decides the case.
Related pages for owners: Los Angeles Landlord Attorney, Unlawful Detainer Attorney Los Angeles, Landlord-Tenant Law, Property Disputes, Neighbor and Community Disputes and Owner-Tenant and Guest Disputes.
Supporting guides: nuisance eviction in California, the three-day notice to quit, and removing unauthorized subtenants.
Call (888) 42-BORNA to schedule a confidential consultation, or reach the Santa Monica office at (888) 42-BORNA to have a notice reviewed before it is served.
This page is general information about California law and is not legal advice. Local ordinances vary by jurisdiction and every property presents different facts. Consult an attorney about your specific situation.
Own or manage property and need counsel on a real estate matter? Contact Borna Houman Law today. Reach out by phone, by email, or at our Santa Monica office.
2530 Wilshire Boulevard,
3rd Floor, Santa Monica, CA 90403
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