california civil-law residential-lease tenant motor-vehicle
What tenant laws apply if there is a non-code compliant living situation in CA?
<p>I'm living in an RV in El Dorado County, CA where like in many counties, it is illegal to occupy a motorhome on residential property. Of course, El Dorado County is so rural that many people do it. Just on my street, I'm aware of 3 motorhomes being occupied.</p>

<p>My property just got foreclosed on and the Bank won't give me any tenant's rights and won't abide by the terms of my rental contract. Instead, they turned off my water and power (which with a couple days of talking to the sheriff's department and the sheriff civil department I got turned back on). Now they've called code enforcement on me and they say I've got till Monday to leave. I'm working on it and (hopefully) I think I've found a new place.</p>

<p>I'm not trying to fight this as it's a losing battle, but the situation has brought up many important issues. Here are my questions:</p>

<ol>
<li>Does a person living in an RV on residential land have <em>any</em> tenant's rights whatsoever? What protections would someone in this situation have?</li>
<li>Does my contract's 30-day notice clause apply? I've yet to receive any paperwork from the bank and they only contacted me last week.</li>
<li>Does code enforcement need to give notice to someone according to the county's tenant laws?</li>
</ol>

<p>Any other related knowledge would be most helpful.
Thanks!</p>

<h2>In general, a contract for an unlawful purpose is void</h2>

<p>Since residing in an RV is illegal, a contract purportedly allowing you to do so is not a contract.</p>

<p>However, whether you have protection as a tenant is probably unrelated to whether you have a valid tenancy agreement and would be based on if you were a tenant as defined in the relevant law. For example, the <a href="/questions/tagged/new-south-wales" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;new-south-wales&#39;" rel="tag">new-south-wales</a> [Residential Tenancies Act 2010]<a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/2010/42/part1/div2/sec8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">1</a> refers to “agreements”, not contracts and then goes on to define what’s in and what’s out - your situation would be “in”. You would need to check your local law.</p>
