California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 332, adding to Civil Code as section 1947.5, allowing landlords of residential property to ban smoking tobacco therein as of January 1, 2012.

Creditors, collection agencies, and even attorneys can be held liable for abusive collection practices under both federal and state law. There are steps you should avoid taking when attempting to collect on a debt:

If your business is continuing to suffer, is there any way to get out from under what may now appear to be an unfavorable lease?

I have repeatedly been asked the question from puzzled clients, “should I cash the check or not?” This situation usually arises when the client is owed $2,000 (for example) and the customer mails the client a check for $1,500 with a notation “payment in full” written on the check.

A recent decision regarding commercial property in Orange County, California addressed one rare situation in which payment of property taxes may be required to establish a prescriptive easement.

Individual homeowners, and homeowner’s associations (and HOA management companies), should continue to pay close attention to property conditions that may pose a significant risk of injury to guests and visitors.

Can homeowners sue a developer for the damages caused by that developer in marketing neighboring homes to sub-prime buyers who presented a high risk of foreclosure? The answer is an uncomfortable “maybe” for housing developers, according to the recent Ninth Circuit decision in Maya v. Centex Corp.

Generally, an unlicensed contractor may not collect compensation for construction work. However, will a court enforce an arbitration award involving an unlicensed contractor where arbitration was voluntarily agreed to by all parties?

During the economic downturn of the last few years, an increasing number of our firm’s clients have expressed concern over the fact that a growing number of their business’s customers are becoming slow pay . . . or, perhaps, no pay. In some instances, clients have asked, “what should I do when a customer has an account receivable that is more than four months past due and that customer refuses to return my call?”

Retailers may start to think twice about continuing to ask customers for their zip code, as it may subject them to litigation from their customers.

If you represent those in the construction industry, you should advise them to pay close attention to any licensing requirements of any contract or subcontract they may enter into.

All attorneys should learn from Critzer v. Enos. A deal is only a deal, if it is in writing or read on the record before the court, by a party or an authorized non-attorney representative of a party.