Facts: A landlord and tenant agreed the tenant was to pay rent through a designated rent payment website. The tenant’s rent became delinquent, and the landlord served the tenant with a three-day notice to pay rent or quit. The notice demanded the delinquent rent be paid to the landlord’s designee through the rent payment website. The tenant did not tender payment and the landlord obtained an unlawful detainer (UD) judgment against the tenant.
Related article: Late fees and the three-day notice to pay rent or quit
Claim: The tenant sought to reverse the unlawful detainer judgment, claiming the three-day notice was not valid since the landlord did not provide a physical address to which the rent payment was to be delivered as required by the statute outlining the procedure for enforcing a three-day notice to pay rent or quit.
Counterclaim: The landlord sought to maintain the unlawful detainer judgment against the tenant since the designated rent payment website which had been previously used satisfied the statutory requirement that the three-day notice indicate an address to which payment is to be delivered and thus the notice was valid.
Holding: A California court of appeals held the unlawful detainer judgment was improper since the three-day notice to pay rent or quit was not valid, as the landlord did not provide a physical address to which the payment was to be made as required to enforce the three-day notice. [Foster v. Williams (2014) 177 Cal.Rptr.3d 371; see first tuesday Form 575]
