Free California Unconditional Quit Notice

Four, and they are narrower than the phrase “severe violation” suggests. Paragraph 4 reaches a tenant, subtenant, or executor or administrator of that person’s estate who assigns or sublets the demised premises contrary to the conditions or covenants of the lease, commits waste upon the premises, maintains, commits or permits the maintenance or commission of a nuisance upon the premises, or uses the premises for an unlawful purpose. Any of those “thereby terminates the lease,” and on service of a three-day notice to quit the landlord is entitled to restitution of possession. Criminal conduct as such is not a listed ground — it reaches paragraph 4 only through nuisance or unlawful use.

Not on the face of the statute. The phrase “excluding Saturdays and Sundays and other judicial holidays” appears in paragraph 2 of § 1161, for nonpayment, and twice in paragraph 3, for a curable breach — governing both the notice period and the tenant’s cure window. Paragraph 4 contains no such language; it requires only service of a three-day notice to quit. Because the exclusion was written into two paragraphs and not the third, counting calendar days is the reading the text supports. Many California practitioners nevertheless exclude weekends and holidays as a conservative measure. Confirm the count with California counsel before filing.

Paragraph 4 supplies cross-references rather than leaving nuisance entirely to the common law. A person who commits or maintains a public nuisance as described in Civil Code § 3482.8 — property used for willfully conducting dogfighting or cockfighting in violation of the Penal Code — or who commits an offense described in Civil Code § 3486, subdivision (c), which defines a “controlled substance purpose” by reference to a list of Health and Safety Code violations, or who uses the premises to further the purpose of such an offense, is deemed to have committed a nuisance upon the premises. Conduct outside those references must qualify as a nuisance on ordinary principles.

It can. Where the tenancy is covered by Civil Code § 1946.2, subdivision (a) requires the just cause to be stated in the written notice to terminate. The grounds themselves survive: nuisance, waste, assigning or subletting in violation of the lease, and using the premises for an unlawful purpose are all listed as at-fault just cause in § 1946.2(b)(1)(C), (D), (G) and (I), each expressly cross-referencing paragraph 4 of § 1161. What changes is the paperwork. Section 1946.2(g) renders a written termination notice void for failure to comply with any provision of the section, and stating the cause is one of those provisions.

When the violation is curable and the tenancy is covered by AB 1482. Civil Code § 1946.2(c) requires an owner, before issuing a notice to terminate for a just cause that is a curable lease violation, to first give notice of the violation to the tenant with an opportunity to cure it under paragraph 3 of Code of Civil Procedure § 1161. Only if the violation is not cured within the time set in that notice may a three-day notice to quit without an opportunity to cure then be served. Paragraph 3 carries a parallel rule for every tenancy: no cure notice is required where the violated conditions or covenants cannot afterward be performed.

The two demands come from different paragraphs and are ordinarily kept apart. Unpaid rent is paragraph 2 of § 1161, which requires a three-day notice stating the amount due and identifying where or how payment may be made, and which preserves the tenant’s right to pay and stay. Paragraph 4 demands possession only and offers no cure. Folding a demand for money into an unconditional demand for possession invites the argument that the notice was not unconditional at all, or that it was a defective pay-or-quit notice. As a matter of practice rather than a rule written in the statute, serve the notice that matches the ground and take California counsel’s view before combining them.

Code of Civil Procedure § 1162(a) supplies the methods for § 1161 notices in a residential tenancy: personal delivery of a copy to the tenant; or, if the tenant is absent from both their place of residence and their usual place of business, leaving a copy with a person of suitable age and discretion at either place and sending a copy by mail to the tenant at their residence; or, if neither place can be ascertained and no person of suitable age or discretion can be found, affixing a copy conspicuously on the property, delivering a copy to a person residing there if one can be found, and mailing a copy to the property. Certified mail is not among them. Service on a subtenant may be made the same way.

The conduct does. Paragraph 4 of Code of Civil Procedure § 1161 says that a tenant who assigns or sublets contrary to the lease, commits waste, maintains, commits or permits a nuisance, or uses the premises for an unlawful purpose “thereby terminates the lease” — and that the landlord, upon service of a three-day notice to quit, is entitled to restitution of possession under the chapter. That is the structural difference from paragraph 3, where the tenant, a subtenant in actual occupation, a mortgagee of the term or another person interested in its continuance may perform the covenants or pay the stipulated rent within the notice period and thereby save the lease from forfeiture.