Serving Legal Documents by Mail or Overnight Carrier

I just finished a conversation with my paralegal reiterating how I wanted her to serve a Notice of Belief of Abandonment on a tenant.  For the uninitiated, A Notice of Belief of Abandonment is a document that a California landlord can send to the tenant, via mail, that might allow the landlord to regain legal possession of leased premises without the necessity of filing an eviction or unlawful detainer lawsuit. This possessory remedy is allowed by statute, the requirements of which must be strictly followed. It is important to note that the statute does allow this notice to be served by mail.

In my office, how we send something by mail is very important because, not only do we want to prove that we actually sent what we said we sent but also we want to prove that we actually intended for the recipient to receive the notice.  Therefore, it is our customary practice to send a notice that is allowed to be sent by mail, by certified mail, return receipt accepted, (“RRA”), priority mail AND duplicates to the same recipient by first class mail.

Now, you may ask, why do we send duplicates by first class mail, particularly when sending something by first class mail does not provide any written or verifiable proof that we actually sent the notice?  Well, the answer is borne from experience and in my case good and bad experience. 

When I send something by certified mail or priority mail, it may not actually get delivered.  As a matter of fact, when I send a notice to a tenant who I believe is no longer in the premises, I would gather to say that most of the time, the certified letter never actually gets to the tenant because they are not at the premises and the certified letter often gets returned to me.  Also, it is not uncommon for a tenant to ignore or avoid the delivery of a certified or priority letter. When I send a letter by first class mail, it can get forwarded to the tenant if they have left a forwarding address.

If I ever have to go to court and the tenant argues that they did not get the notice, I can then present to the court proof that the notice was sent by certified mail or priority mail, which may have been returned but yes, I also sent it by first class mail, which was not returned, increasing the likelihood that tenant did receive the notice and at the very least, elevating me in the eyes of the court and making it clear that I went beyond what was statutorily required and do everything reasonably necessary to make sure that the tenant received the notice and had an opportunity to respond.  It never fails to work.

In a later post, I will discuss more about a statutory Notice of Belief of Abandonment and why and when to use it.