Can I deny access to a jointly-owned property to protect my own property? Long story short, I had a roommate and we broke things off in a very negative way. We jointly rent an apartment in Los Angeles, but she has since moved out and taken ALL of her things. The only things that remain are my own. This is currently her last month with her name on the lease before we switch to my new roommate next month. She however, refused to pass over the keys to myself and has held onto them. She essentially has access to the property at all times, whether I'm home or not, sleeping or not. All of the things on the premise are mine, and the only one staying here is me. It's an incredibly frustrating and frightening situation as I am afraid for both myself and my property. She already has come over once prior unannounced, entered the home and started riffling through my things while I was present. She stated that she is coming over on Saturday for unstated business. Is there any legal argument for me denying her access to the premise for the protection of my own things? I realize that she has rights to the space, but does that imply she has rights to the things within the space?
She has no legal right to your stuff, and every legal right to the apartment. The only way adjudicate such a conflict of rights is with a restraining order. A temporary order would expire in 3 weeks. Item 14 in the petition requests exclusive use, possession, and control of the property. However, that path of restraints is tailored to domestic violence, so item 27 has you describe the alleged abuse: Abuse means to intentionally or recklessly cause or attempt to cause bodily injury to you; or to place you or another person in reasonable fear of imminent serious bodily injury; or to harass, attack, strike, threaten, assault (sexually or otherwise), hit, follow, stalk, molest, keep you under surveillance, impersonate (on the Internet, electronically or otherwise), batter, telephone, or contact you; or to disturb your peace; or to destroy your personal property. Note that the description refers to destroying your personal property, not pawing through it. It's really impossible to know if the judge will exercise his discretion to include "reasonable fear of destruction (or theft) of personal property", since the ex-roommate has no further interest in the apartment. There is an alternative path of a harassment restraining order, which does not require a defined domestic relationship (such as ex-roommate), where "harassment" is violence or threats of violence against you, or a course of conduct that seriously alarmed, annoyed, or harassed you and caused you substantial emotional distress. A course of conduct is more than one act and that seems even less likely.
Parents do not have the right to their child's property. See this question. The parent cannot sell the house as they don't own it. The minor does- there is no law that says they cannot own real estate. There are limits on what minors can and can't do with it but this simply means that the legal guardian would be involved in selling it. Even if the parent was the legal guardian they would be selling it on behalf of the child. Depending on the age of the child this would involve either their consent or this being in their best interests. The contents are more complicated. In theory, if they were also inherited by the child, no. In practice it would be difficult to prove ownership. The most reliable way to prevent this would be taking physical possession of any important items by removing either the item or the parent from the house.
Sounds a lot like a bad-luck, move-on situation. I can't imagine any reason why the complex would have any duty to watch your bike for you or otherwise ensure that no one steals it. The fact that you bought it knowing that the bike shed had not yet been built and that the security gates were broken would probably count against you. If you know who stole your bike, you'd have a much better case against them, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. If you're looking for a typical contingency-fee arrangement, in which the attorney takes a fee from your winnings, I'd imagine you're going to be especially out of luck, based on two hard facts: The total damages you can collect is probably going to be equal to the price of your bicycle: £400. The average hourly rate at national firms for the most junior lawyer is already more than £200. If you sat down with such a lawyer, explained your situation, discussed your options, and then tasked the lawyer to write a threatening letter to the apartment complex, you'd already have incurred more fees than the value of the bicycle. Probably no attorney is interested in that arrangement -- especially since it's highly unlikely the complex would pay. So unless you're actually willing to pay hourly rates, I can't imagine any lawyer taking this case. Even if you were, no one may take it just because lawyers don't like taking cases that they're going to lose.
The co-tenants in any real property are entitled to possess and enjoy the entire property, &quot;unless otherwise&quot;. The conveyance might say otherwise (it's on the deed), and it is most likely that you are equal co-owners. You and your brother could take exclusive possession of the property for some period of time, meaning that you can legally exclude your sister from the property during that time – if you all agree to that (I assume you didn't, maybe you did). In that case, your right to possess the property could be contingent on the prior agreement to pay rent (again, I assume there is no such agreement). Your sister also has the same right live in the house without paying rent. She cannot throw you out of your own house if you don't pay rent. The primary question is whether from a legal perspective, you and your brother have exclusive possession of the property, under the laws of your jurisdiction, so in a few jurisdictions you might have to pay rent. That's not the same as &quot;living there&quot;.
Maybe, Hence the Lawsuits In the absence of clear statute law these all circle around tort law. For the scooter companies, trespass to chattels, and for the affected landowners (who hire the removalists) trespass to land and nuisance seem applicable. In essence, I can’t take your stuff (trespass to chattels) but you can’t leave your stuff on my property (trespass to land) or impeding access to it (nuisance). If you do, I am entitled to the reasonable costs of dealing with it. Note that, as owner, you remain responsible for you stuff even if you rented it to someone else. Both sides are pushing hard into unexplored areas of law so we await the judgement with interest. Then we’ll know.
In principle, a verbal contract is just as binding as a written contract. The catch is that it can be difficult to prove what was said. Unless you have witnesses, it would just be your word against his. As DStanley says in the comments, if you have proof that you paid half -- canceled checks or receipts or whatever -- that would be evidence that there was some sort of agreement. Whether your daughter is allowed to drive the car on a specific day depends not just on who owns the car but who has legal custody of your daughter. If a friend of hers said that it is okay with him for her to drive his car to a wild party where there will be drugs and an orgy, the fact that he has full title to the car does not mean that her parents have no right to tell her she can't go! You didn't say what the custody arrangements are, but if you have full custody or shared custody, this would give you certain rights to tell her what she is and is not allowed to do.
The section you quote as clearly saying a thing is not clearly saying the thing. However: you cannot pass on or resell any license keys seems to say a thing clearly. However, one could argue that it's the sharer of the account who is in the wrong, and not the person receiving and passing on the account. I'd say that that piece of the agreement, combined with this: must not... let other people get access to anything we've made in a way that is unfair or unreasonable says that, yes, they are out of bounds.
There is no general rule about ownership: one parking lot I know is owned by the city, another is owned by the company that operates the mall, and in a third case it is owned by a third party who doesn't operate the mall. Either way, the owner of the parking lot has the property right to limit how it is used, and their agents (security guards, for example) can request that you refrain from skateboarding. They can evict you; they may not have the legal authority to physically toss you off the property, but they can probably perform a citizen's arrest for trespassing. None of this depends on how many cars are in the parking lot. It is more likely that a governmentally-owned parking lot will have a corresponding law restricting its use (whereas in the case of a private parking lot, restrictions center around general property law and the law of trespass).