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A focus of my practice is dedicated to receivership matters. I am routinely appointed by California courts as a receiver. Specifically, I have acted as a health & safety code receiver, a rents & profits receiver, a post-judgment receiver and a partition referee. On August 26, 2014, I moderated and participated in a speaker panel at the San Diego County Bar Center presented by the San Diego Chapter of the California Receiver Forum. We were fortunate to have the Honorable Eddie C. Sturgeon speak on the panel.

Many times, a property under the control of a health and safety code receiver is occupied by tenants. The substandard condition of the property may not be the fault of the property tenants. This situation commonly arises when the property owner/landlord is non-responsive and failing to maintain the property in a safe and habitable condition. Health and safety receiverships arise often in the context of rental properties (single-family homes or apartment buildings).

Time sure does fly. Here at Griswold Law (and in life), things have been quite busy. I was unpleasantly surprised to realize it has been close to a year since the last article. My motivation is renewed and the published articles will follow.

Section 2938 of the California Civil Code requires commercial tenants to pay their rent to the creditor of their landlord when a landlord defaults on its obligations to its creditor under certain circumstances. The general principle is that if a landlord defaults under an obligation to the creditor, the creditor can compel the tenant to make rental payments directly to it.

The Department of Consumer Affairs defines a habitable rental unit as a rental unit that substantially complies with building and safety code standards that materially affect tenants' health and safety. The landlord is required to make any and all repairs in order to make the unit habitable because all leases and rental agreements contain an implied warranty of habitability.