Son won't leave...no lease

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needhelpinfl

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My son has been residing at my residence until he "could get on his feet". It has now been six months.......he will not look for a job, pays nothing towards rent or utilities. Has become a mooch and even violent and in my face if I don't continue to accomodate him. Today he held the door where I could not close it and forced me to listen to him. Banters in my face to hit him and tells me he does not have to move out as it is his residence. PLEASE help!! What legal rights do I have??
 
If your son is over 18, change the locks. Next time he gets in your face call the police and do a police report. If necessary get a Restraining Order. You do not have to put up with such silliness. He is a guest and you may put him out. If you need help, you can get a restraining order after a police report where he was violent. If you get a RO they will tell him he MUST leave. Good luck.
 
While changing locks and getting tough with him might get him to leave... if he contacts police and makes a complaint you might find yourself having to let him back in.
Whether he is paying rent or not, he is a resident. You are the landlord and he is the tenant. Evict him. Follow the same rules that a landlord has and you will be ok. Landlords actually get themselves in trouble when they change locks and cut off services.
Police won't help you unless there is something they can arrest him for. They aren't in the habit of putting people out on the street without a judge's order.
 
By changing locks you could be setting yourself up for legal trouble. He is a resident and thus you must take legal measures to remove him if he wont leave on his own. Browse this site you might find the process you need to follow to remove him. I suspect first must be notice to vacate time frame depending state laws and how (if at all) he pays rent. If he is not out by then you may file for eviction.

http://www.800helpfla.com/landlord_text.html
 
Your son is not a resident, he is a guest. The law does not protect him. He has no tenancy in your home. People who live in your home without paying rent or utilities are NOT residents.

Like I said, the best thing to do is to call the police when he becomes violent and make a police report especially if he threatens you. Take that police report to the Court and get a domestic restraining order. They can tell him that he can no longer live in the house and enforce it with police action if necessary.
 
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If your son is making physical threats against you, then contact the police. Often otherwise they will not step into the issue, citing this as a civil, not criminal situation.

With no backing from law enforcement, parents often find that filing for an eviction moves hesitant and defiant offspring up and out.

Had to do the same with my oldest son years ago. The police escorted him off my property only because he had threatened me (they encouraged me to file charges for terroristic threats against me but I could not bring myself to do that; I only wished him out of my house). If he had not made physical threats against me they would have done nothing except encourage me to file for eviction through our local court system.

Gail
 
He has lived there 6 months and likely getting mail there. That should establish him as a tenant meaning Mom and Dad cannot lock him out
 
His time in the home has established him as a resident. Paying rent has nothing to do with it. The same landlord/tenant rules apply.
 
I hate to tell you that time and mail do NOT establish residence. Both are indicators but not definitive. I suppose we can just disagree on this one. If you search back on the dozens of posts about the difference between a guest and a tenant you will see what I mean. I can arrange to get mail at someone's house on the very first day I arrive, does that make me a tenant? No. A utility bill would go a long way to doing that, simple mail, no. There is a progression between stranger and owner of the home that makes it way through stages. Guest, resident, tenant at will, lessor, purchaser, owner. If you would like I can show you the case law on the subject, but I don't have it at my finger tips. I suppose I do, it's on the computer somewhere but I am not really inclined to find it right now. We can just leave it as we disagree for now if you like.

In this lady's case I imagine his reaction to any means of getting him out may be the issue, not really the method.
 
I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't look this up:

FS 83.43 states the definitions for the landlord tenant section of Floridia law:
Item (4) "Tenant" means any person entitled to occupy a dwelling unit under a
rental agreement.

Notice the word Entitled emphasis added by me.

Item (10) "Transient occupancy" means occupancy when it is the intention of
the parties that the occupancy will be temporary.

Transient occupants are not "residents" or "tenants" and have no hold on the property.

These "transient occupants" are normally in hotels and pay a nightly rent. However, guests in your home also fall into this category and they do not grow roots just because they somehow receive mail at your property (which would be beyond your control) or because you are too nice to make them leave.

If you are absolutely certain that "transient occupants" are residents because of time and mail then I would invite you to think about a long term hotel stay. Imagine a female becomes the roommate of a male who is renting a weekly hotel room. She stays there for 6 months and pays no rent. In that time she begins receiving mail at the front desk which is kindly forwarded to her by a box a lotted to each room. Her boyfriend breaks up with her and tells her to leave (now he isn't the owner of the room but he is the one paying). Would either of you believe that he needed to evict her because she was there 6 months and got mail?

What if he decides to leave and stop renting the hotel room but she holds over. Would you suppose that the hotel owner would have to evict her because she is somehow a tenant at will? Did she grow roots in the hotel because she has been there for 6 months and got mail there? No.

This lady is doing much the same thing only she owns the property. She allowed her son to stay in her residence (not his) occupy a room, and use common areas of the house. She may have, as a courtesy, given him a key. However, his presence at the house has always been meant to be temporary or "until he got on his feet." He is a transient occupant who can be asked to leave at any time. He is no different than a guest who comes for a week and weasels their way into a couple weeks and happens to get mail at the residence. The minute she removes her good will invitation he is TRESPASSING and the police can get involved.

Maybe this clears it up, or maybe you need to see a Florida Supreme Court Ruling on it. Guests do NOT become residents based upon time and mail.

Dear OP, throw your son out of the house and lock the door. If he refuses to leave call the police and tell them he is now a trespasser that has worn out his welcome. You are perfectly safe to do so.
 
FS 509.141 is for eviction of someone who is a PAYING guest of a hotel:
(2) The operator of any public lodging establishment or public food
service establishment shall notify such guest that the establishment no
longer desires to entertain the guest and shall request that such guest
immediately depart from the establishment. Such notice may be given orally
or in writing. . . . .

(3) Any guest who remains or attempts to remain in any such establishment
after being requested to leave is guilty of a misdemeanor of the second
degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Now one would suspect that a person who is not paying has fewer rights than one who is paying. If she asks her son to leave and he refuses he is tresspassing.
 
jharris352 said:
I figured I wouldn't be able to sleep if I didn't look this up:

FS 83.43 states the definitions for the landlord tenant section of Floridia law:
Item (4) "Tenant" means any person entitled to occupy a dwelling unit under a
rental agreement.
Click to expand...

Boy, this one is really getting at you!

I would still argue that the son was a tenant entitled to occupy the residence for free according to the oral agreement with his mother.
He moved in perhaps with the understanding that the stay would be temporary, but there was no end date set. What is temporary? To mom, temporary ends right now. To the son, temporary ends when he gets tired of mom and is ready to go.

This issue of family members having to evict each other in this manner is not uncommon, and they are regularly steered toward the court to begin the eviction process.

A transient occupant would be one that was allowed in for brief and predetermined time. When that time is up, it is time to go... but if the homeowner does not hold them to it, and days become weeks, and then months... they must evict.
 
jharris352 said:
FS 509.141 is for eviction of someone who is a PAYING guest of a hotel:
(2) The operator of any public lodging establishment or public food
service establishment shall notify such guest that the establishment no
longer desires to entertain the guest and shall request that such guest
immediately depart from the establishment. Such notice may be given orally
or in writing. . . . .

(3) Any guest who remains or attempts to remain in any such establishment
after being requested to leave is guilty of a misdemeanor of the second
degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

Now one would suspect that a person who is not paying has fewer rights than one who is paying. If she asks her son to leave and he refuses he is tresspassing.
Click to expand...

This is a good example of a transient occupant at a hotel, but does not apply the same to a person allowed to stay in a residence with no set termination date. The person in the house is not "temporary" in the same was as a hotel customer.
 
Moose, the law isn't something you get to make up. The only thing you are right about in your post is that hotel tenants are not the same as the situation we are describing. You are right, hotel tenants have MORE rights than the son we are talking about. I appreciate your analysis but you have absolutely no law to back you up. You can't make it up out of thin air..... What worries me is you are a police officer and should know better.

Temporary is an ongoing understanding that is controlled by the homeowner who has all the rights. If they let you stay for 6 years it could still be temporary. The legal definitions say that term is based upon the period "when rent is due." Not when Moose thinks you have been there long enough to now qualify. As you said this bothers me, chiefly because you should know better since you enforce the law.

Now as I said, California might as well be a different planet so maybe you can be excused on that part, but tenancy is a legal concept not one of opinion. Feel free to find me anything that supports your opinion and I'll be happy to read it. I think you will find that your analysis is sort of an urban legend among armchair lawyers. If you stop and think about it for even a moment you would realize how crazy your theory would make tenancy laws.

Every time you let someone in your house there would be some imaginary date looming at some undetermined time in the future where you would suddenly lose control of your own dwelling! That's insane!

By the way, "I would still argue that the son was a tenant entitled to occupy the residence for free according to the oral agreement with his mother." That was not the oral agreement. She said he could stay until he got on his feet but that it was always to be temporary. Further, an oral agreement is not a contract without. . . . .. .CONSIDERATION. We call that rent. Until he pays rent, or utilities, or something in exchange for his place to stay then he is simply a transient guest. You can not find a single word in the LAW that supports otherwise, at least not Florida law. I have no idea bout CA.

It's important because I wonder how many other phantom laws you and your compatriots are out their enforcing! This isn't a deep legal concept. Property rights are. I have provided you with the law. In Floridia there are three levels of residency: transient occupancy which can be paid or unpaid (guest or hotel), tenancy (which is ONLY triggered by payment of consideration in the form of rent/utilities), and Ownership (which is signified by a deed). Conspicuously absent is the "Moose said they have stayed here long enough to be a resident statue!"

Again, I'm smiling as I write this. I'm not trying to be angry or rude, but really Moose, this isn't even a question. Her son is NOT a resident after he turned 18 and isn't paying rent. Law is just law, if you can't find it written somewhere it doesn't exist.
 
Strangely enough there is not a crime of unlawful eviction in Florida. A TENANT who is unlawfully evicted may sue for actual/consequential damages or 3 months rent, which ever is greater. Since he doesn't pay rent she would have to damage him or his property in the "unlawful" eviction.
 
Certainly the unlawful eviction would cause him to incur certain costs... he could recover those costs.

Unfortunately I have not turned up a statute that specifically addresses this problem, but I do know that requiring an eviction in this situation is common practice. Perhaps it is along the lines of estoppel, I'm not certain.

Here is a small article I turned up out of Florida addressing a problem with squatters... similar to this, but it still doesn't cite the relevant statutes (if they even exist). There is certainly existing case law that defines all this for us, but it isn't at our fingertips.

http://www.baynews9.com/content/36/2008/12/8/412312.html
 
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