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Health and Safety Receivership actions often deal with homeowners who are packrats/hoarders, elderly, or mentally/physically disabled. These types of homeowners may not be able to properly maintain and care for their house, which leads to loss of control of the property and the commencing of a receivership action. A Court-Appointed Health and Safety Receiver is temporarily appointed by the court to address the health and safety concerns of substandard properties that have been neglected by property owners. A Health and Safety Receivership can successfully rehabilitate distressed properties when the homeowner is unwilling or unable to remedy code violations themselves.

Hoarding is a serious clinical disorder where an individual has obstinate difficulty discarding or parting with belongings. A person with a hoarding disorder experiences distress at the idea of getting rid of their possessions because they have an inherent need to save them. This mentality results in excessive accrual of belongings regardless of actual value. Hoarding behaviors can produce an unsafe environment posing a health and safety risk to the people living in the home.  A Court-Appointed Health & Safety Receiver can remedy the effects of extreme hoarding at residential properties. The court can appoint a neutral third-party receiver to take control of the property to remedy the challenging hoarding conditions.

Hooray a judgment as been entered! However, the battle is not over yet. Now the phase of enforcing and collecting on that judgment begins. In many cases, a judgement debtor will never willingly satisfy a judgment. A post-judgment Receivership is a great judgment enforcement remedy that can help recover money to pay the judgment. A post-judgment Receiver is appointed by the court and, for example, may be granted the authority to manage and take possession of the judgment debtor’s real and personal property to collect, lease, repair, or sell as the court directs. Courts have interpreted that a post-judgment Receiver is in fact working for the benefit of the judgment creditor that sought the appointment of the Receiver.

The partition remedy in California addresses disputes between co-owners of property.  Any person with an interest in real property in California may bring a partition action against a co-owner. The partition remedy is necessary when co-owners cannot decide how to handle jointly-owned property. Properties subject to partition include, but are not limited to, single-family residences, vacation homes, investment properties, commercial buildings, apartment buildings, and parcels of land.

Griswold Law, along with co-counsel JCL Law Firm, recently achieved a class action settlement on behalf of a class of San Diego County individuals that suffered illegal treatment as motel/apartment occupants.  The class members were subject to a variation of the "28-day shuffle" policy, unlawfully utilized by some motels/apartments in California.  As a part of the court-approved class action settlement, we were honored to present a $75,881.50 "cy pres" donation to Alpha Project in San Diego.  We presented the check to Alpha Project at the grand opening ceremony of their beautiful new project (Alpha Square) in downtown San Diego on November 18, 2015.  The building will provide 203 brand-new units for the homeless population in San Diego!!

Some California motel operators in California try to avoid landlord-tenant laws by temporarily forcing out their long-term occupants approximately every 28 days. As discussed in earlier blog articles, under most circumstances if a California resident resides anywhere for 30 or more days, they generally become a “tenant” under California law.