Here’s our story (hopefully, we can get some helps from the community):
We live in the San Francisco, California. We owned a single family house and rent out to two individual more than 10 years ago. We started having tenant issues few years ago. Hence, we nicely asked both tenants to move out and willing to pay for the so-called relocation fee + cash. Of course, both tenants are not cooperative. One tenant was paying roughly $250 monthly and other one was paying $450 monthly (they have their own room and shared our main entrance) + utility.
My mom did not have any lease agreement/contract with them when they move in at the time. One gentleman is now more than 62 years old now, and other one claimed himself had mental disorder (and have some doctor proof and stuff. In another word, he claimed himself “handicapped”).
So, around three years ago, we hired a lawyer to evict them out. We basically want to regain all space since I got married and kids now. So, we can do Ellis Act and do not want to rent out anymore. It’s our first time hiring lawyer, we basically paid up to $25K right before the Trial. The lawyer basically charge too much and we are not afford to pay (since we wanted to save money for relocation money for both tenants and such. We were willing to pay up to $30K per person). Of course, both tenants did not agree and asked for at least $100K… WTF, they are paying us $250/month and asking $100K to move out? We basically step out the case before the Trial. Both tenants decided NOT to pay anything (rent or utility) since 2-years ago.
Anyways, we decided to look for another “cheaper” lawyer after we step out the Trial. We found a Flat-Fee lawyer in Yelp. The lawyer basically took our one-time “flat-fee” money and not doing anything in past 2 years. This lawyer promised to help us do the Ellis Act Eviction. However, we have not receive any real words from him. Initially, he responded to our emails/calls periodically, basically just saying that “he is working on it”. There’s no real document/shows that Ellis Act Eviction has performed (at least, no letters serve to us and such).
The tenant-issues are getting very nasty now. This lawyer is not respond on any emails/phone calls anymore… Is there anyways to report this lawyer to Board? What’s our recourse on this lawyer, if any? We are hoping someone can point us to the right direction if possible.
Your help is much appreciated!