What rights do I have as a live-in employee that has been unpaid for 2 months and is now being evicted?
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What rights do I have as a live-in employee that has been unpaid for 2 months and is now being evicted?
The gentleman I live with asked me to come live with him and he would pay me $600 a month for my companionship. He has not paid me for 3 months and now he is evicting me. What can I do?
Asked on August 9, 2010 under Real Estate Law, California
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 14 years ago | Contributor
1) If you had an employment agreement with this person, even a verbal one, it is enforceable--if you did legal work, you have to be paid for it.
2) If room and board is part of your pay, you are a tenant in that regards, and you can only be evicted when your lease is up and not renewed (though if there's no written lease--i.e. it's an oral lease--it's a month to month; only 1 month's notice is required), or when you either breach the lease in some way or when your employment, on which the lease is dependent, ends. If room and board is not part of the employment, you can be evicted more or less at will, as long as the proper procedures are followed.
3) Note that some employment agreements are not enforceable, including any one that involved intimate conduct or favors. Being a home aid of some kind, assisting in day-to-day activities, etc. is valid work and you need to paid for it; agreements to provide certain other kinds of "companionship" are not. (e.g. if the companionship is that which a significant other would provided).
You don't describe what the work was, but if you feel it was the sort for which you can have a valid employer-employee relationship, then speak with an attorney--you may have a legally enforceable right to be paid.
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