Monterey · Santa Cruz · San Benito · Santa Clara counties
Coastal Evictions prepares, serves, and files every document a California unlawful detainer requires — and serves it with our own registered process server, so nothing sits waiting on an outside vendor. Flat fee by stage. You authorize each stage, and if the tenant pays or leaves, you stop paying there.
We are also a licensed brokerage and we manage property — so we can collect the arrears, re-let the unit, and take the tenancy over from here if you would rather not do this again.
Registration & licence record
The process
Every stage below has a legal clock attached to it, and none of them starts until the one before it finishes correctly. This is the same sequence we run on every file.
You send the lease, a rent ledger, and the names of every adult occupant. We confirm the legal grounds and which notice the tenancy actually requires.
A 3-day notice to pay rent or quit for nonpayment, or a 30-, 60-, or 90-day notice
where the grounds are termination or no-fault just cause. Drawn to CCP §1161.
Our own registered process server delivers the notice and executes the proof of service. No third-party vendor queue, and no gap between preparing the notice and serving it.
If the tenant pays the demand or vacates, the matter is over and you stop paying at this stage. That is the outcome we are aiming for, and it is the cheapest one.
Summons and complaint filed in the county Superior Court and served on every occupant named — including adults who never signed the lease.
Since 1 January 2025 a tenant has 10 court days to respond, not
five — AB 2347 doubled it. Court holidays and weekends do not count.
Requesting a default before that window closes is how a judgment gets set aside.
No answer, and we request entry of default and judgment. An answer, and the case is contested — and we keep unlawful detainer attorneys ready to appear, so the file moves across to counsel instead of coming back to you.
We coordinate the Writ of Possession with the Sheriff's Civil Division. The Sheriff
posts a 5-day notice to vacate, then restores possession to you. We can
re-key the unit the same day under our own contractor's licence.
Uncontested, notice to lockout, is typically about 5 to 9 weeks. A contested case runs longer. Court and Sheriff calendars set that pace — anyone promising you a fixed date is guessing.
Where cases fail
None of these are exotic. They are the defects that come up again and again, and each one costs a landlord another full notice period of unpaid rent.
A 3-day notice used on a no-fault termination, or a 30-day where the tenancy has earned 60, is void on its face. The tenant's attorney will not miss it, and you begin again.
Personal, substituted, and posting-and-mailing service each carry their own requirements and their own diligence showing. If the proof of service fails, the notice fails with it.
The answer window became 10 court days on 1 January 2025. Templates and advice written before that still say five. A default entered on the old count is vulnerable.
An adult occupant who was never named and never served can claim exactly that, and stay after the writ. Occupants get identified at intake, not at the lockout.
Scope of work
Coastal Evictions works under four California licences at once — unlawful detainer assistant, process server, real estate broker, and contractor. Between them they cover almost the whole matter. One thing they do not cover is a courtroom.
In the unlawful detainer itself, only an attorney can speak for you — that is the one real boundary, and we say so plainly rather than discover it at the hearing. Small claims is the exception: there we can appear as your property agent, which comes from the management agreement rather than the UDA registration.
We keep unlawful detainer attorneys ready to appear. The moment a tenant files an answer, the matter moves from our file to counsel's calendar — with the notice, the proofs of service, and the complaint already correct and already served. You do not restart, and you do not lose the notice period you have already run.
You engage the attorney directly and pay them directly; we take no share of their fee.
Property management & broker services
An eviction service that only holds a UDA registration stops at the lockout and hands you an empty unit and an unpaid ledger. We are a licensed California real estate brokerage and a property manager, which puts the rest of it inside the same firm — including, in one court, appearing for you.
Rent collection, tenant screening, maintenance, notices, and compliance, run under the
brokerage. Managing and renting real property for an owner is licensed activity under
B&P §10131(b) — it is the licence's core business, not a
sideline to the evictions.
The same licence lets us collect rent and pursue what a tenant owes, before and after judgment, through the brokerage's own trust account rather than a third-party agency.
Cash for keys, a payment plan, or a voluntary surrender, negotiated as your agent. Often faster and cheaper than running the full sequence, and it never sees a courtroom.
The vacancy is the actual loss, not the filing fee. We market, screen, and re-let —
and prepare the itemised deposit disposition owed within 21 days under
CC §1950.5, which becomes its own claim against you if it goes out late.
Under CCP §116.540(h) the owner of rental real property may appear and
participate in a small claims action through a property agent under contract to manage
that property. So for owners whose property we manage, we can bring the claim for unpaid
rent or answer a security deposit dispute ourselves — you do not have to take a day
off work to sit in court.
Two conditions, and we will tell you straight if you do not meet them: we have to be genuinely managing the property, retained to manage it rather than to appear for you, and the claim has to relate to that property.
We cannot litigate a habitability defence — but holding a B — General Building contractor's licence, we can cure the condition it rests on. Repairing the defect is usually the better answer than arguing about it.
Areas served
We work these courthouses and their clerks directly. We are not a statewide filing service routing your case to a stranger.
Fees
No hourly billing, no retainer drawn down against time. You see the fee for a stage, you authorise that stage, and that is what it costs.
Notice, service, filing, judgment, and lockout are priced separately. Cases that end at the notice never incur the filing fee.
The court's own filing fee and the Sheriff's writ and lockout fees are set by the county and billed to you at cost, not marked up.
Once we have seen the ledger and the grounds we can quote the whole sequence. Call (831) 626-6001 and we will price it on the phone.
Questions
A registered unlawful detainer assistant prepares, serves, and files your eviction paperwork for a flat fee. An attorney does that too, generally at an hourly rate, and can additionally appear in court for you.
For an uncontested nonpayment case — which is most of them — the work is document preparation, correct service, and correct counting, and a UDA does that at a fraction of the cost. If the tenant answers and the case becomes contested, you need an attorney — and we keep unlawful detainer attorneys ready to appear, so the case transfers to counsel the same week rather than drifting.
One practical difference worth knowing: a UDA has to be registered and bonded with
the county to operate at all. Our registration runs to 15 July 2028 and the $25,000 bond
under B&P §6405 is in force, and it is there for your protection, not
ours — it answers for fraud, dishonesty, or misstatement by a registrant.
Uncontested, roughly 5 to 9 weeks from the day the notice is served to the day the Sheriff restores possession. The variables are the length of the notice period your grounds require, how quickly the clerk processes a default, and the Sheriff's Civil Division backlog.
A contested case — where the tenant files an answer — typically adds a month or more, because it has to reach a trial setting.
It depends entirely on the grounds. Nonpayment of rent is a 3-day notice to pay or quit. A curable lease violation is a 3-day notice to perform or quit. Terminating a tenancy without cause runs 30, 60, or 90 days depending on how long the tenant has been in possession and whether the unit is covered by state or local just-cause rules.
Getting this wrong is the single most common reason a case restarts, which is why we settle it at intake before anything is drafted.
The case is contested and it will be set for trial, which means it needs an attorney. We keep unlawful detainer attorneys ready to appear, so this is a handoff rather than a search: they get the complete file — notice, proofs of service, complaint, and the tenant's answer — and nothing has to be redone or re-served.
You engage counsel directly and pay them directly. We take no part of an attorney's fee, which is both the rule and the reason we have no incentive to push a case toward trial.
It depends which court. In the unlawful detainer, in Superior Court, you appear yourself or through an attorney — no agent can argue that case for you, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Small claims is different. If we manage your property, CCP §116.540(h)
lets us appear and participate for you on a claim relating to that property — unpaid
rent, or a deposit dispute. That covers a good share of what is actually in dispute after a
tenancy ends, and it means you are not spending a morning at the courthouse.
Yes, both. We coordinate the Writ of Possession with the Sheriff's Civil Division and meet them at the property. Because we also hold a California contractor's licence with the C-61/D-16 lock classification, we can re-key or replace the locks the same day possession is restored, rather than leaving you to find a locksmith.
The lease, a rent ledger or payment history, the names of every adult living in the unit, the full address and unit number, and copies of any notice you have already served. If you have already served something, tell us before we draft — a premature or defective notice sometimes has to be allowed to expire before a clean one can go out.
Start a case
Call or text and you will speak to the person who will actually prepare and serve your paperwork. We respond the same business day.