State Specific Question About: CALIFORNIA (CA)

Tenants put holiday decorations and lighting all over the roof trim. Gave tenant notice to remove them. They argued we were very unreasonable.

On the lease - No nails or holes permitted on the siding, windowsills, or roof of the building.

Now, there are lots of nail holes, so we patched up holes and paint because it's rainy season. I billed tenant the repair charge. Of course, they are not happy.

Am I being unreasonable? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

" Am I being unreasonable? "

MAYBE.

There are court cases where such disagreements have been found to be discriminatory.

The fact that these actions are forbidden by the lease does not carry a lot of weight. You cannot forbid the tenant to take actions which do minor damage and infringe on tenant's enjoyment of the premises. Nail holes would seem to fall into that category. In the case of (religious) holiday decorations, you would likely find it a hard sell to a judge.

Mom and dad's former tenant was a fireman. He would have a bucket truck come over around Christmas time and he would use it to get bunch of lights nailed up on the roof in kind of a sloppy way.

When dad was gone and I took over the handyman job back in 1994, I made the guy stop doing that. To thank me, when he left he took a very nice framed print of a couple of WWII planes flying in the clouds. It was dads. It was big and probably valuable.