Real Estate / Real Property

Residential Lease Dispute. Mother sued church to enforce a below-market lease for her and her three children, which was executed initially so mother and children could escape domestic violence. Plaintiff alleged she was promised she and her children could live at the residence located on church property as long as she needed to live there. Plaintiff also had interpled her monthly rent to the Court. Defendant Church claimed the lease automatically converted to a month-to-month lease in July 2016, that they legally terminated the tenancy several months before the mediation, and that Plaintiff was legally required to vacate immediately and stipulate that all rents held by the Court should be paid to Defendant.

Residential Lease Dispute: Plaintiffs (mother & daughter) filed lawsuit asserting Fair Employment & Housing claims alleging Discrimination, Breach of Implied Warranty of Habitability, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Constructive Eviction, Nuisance, etc. Plaintiffs alleged they evacuated their home due to life and safety issues (mold, flood, toilet malfunction, bugs, etc.) and Defendant landlord served a retaliatory eviction notice thereafter and stalked and harassed Plaintiffs and filed a “fraudulent” eviction action. Plaintiffs also alleged discrimination because tenants and landlord’s family all were Russian and daughter married a Ukrainian, who moved into the unit. Plaintiffs claimed that jury verdict research supported a verdict of $750,000. Defendants alleged Plaintiffs made no complaints for 8 years until daughter married and her husband moved in which violated the lease and landlord justifiably raised the rent. Defendants denied all claims and asserted that Plaintiffs had no damages.

Prescriptive Easement. Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against their neighbors claiming a prescriptive easement prohibited construction of a permitted driveway for a new ADU adjacent to Plaintiffs’ property, and a second easement in favor of Plaintiff provided Plaintiffs the right to continue to use a significant portion of their own driveway which encroached on Defendants’ property. Defendants argued that Plaintiff had not met the legal requirements to establish either easement and that one of the alleged easements was in a public right-away which nullified the possibility of an easement being created.