If you are a landlord of space which is not residential, not a home, not a condominium unit, and not an apartment, and you serve a tenant with a notice to pay rent or quit, or a notice to perform or quit, or a notice to quit after termination, and then the tenant tries to pay you any amount of money, then be very very careful. This came up in a recent appellate decision where the landlord won at trial, and the decision was reversed on appeal. Even the judges could not agree.
Civil Code section 1945 establishes a rebuttable presumption that accepting rent renews the lease or rental agreement. If the lease or rental agreement gets renewed, that voids the previously served eviction notice, unless the landlord can somehow defeat the presumption. Now, you have to start all over again. If you don’t start over again, with a new notice of the next default supporting eviction, then when you get to trial, the Court is likely to hold that there cannot be a judgment for eviction, because the eviction notice was made void when the rent payment was accepted.
In theory, you should be able to keep the payment by promptly and unambiguously notifying the tenant that you are accepting and applying the payment to a portion of any past due amounts owed, and making it clear that the tenant remains in default and the landlord is continuing with the eviction because of the remaining uncured defaults, including remaining unpaid rent and remaining other uncured defaults described in the eviction notice. This is an option only if there is a provision in your lease allowing you to accept a partial cure. You still have to send notice.
If the post-eviction-notice rent payment cures the default, then keeping the payment voids the eviction notice. If you want to keep the payment, there must still be a remaining default which the payment does not cure completely. If you keep the payment, because a further default remain outstanding, then you need to so notify the tenant, promptly and unambiguously. Do not be vague, overbroad or ambiguous. These communications need to be clear and direct.
Filing the eviction lawsuit after receiving the rent payment sounds like a pretty clear message that the landlord is not waiving any other default by accepting the rent. Not necessarily. Send the notice, and make sure it is clear, direct and not subject to even the most imaginative reinterpretation.
Judges are experienced lawyers and have lots of experience with this issue, both as judges and as lawyers. Expect them to find any possible loophole or mistake which will void the eviction notice and defeat the eviction lawsuit.
Let a lawyer with significant experience with evictions, advise you on whether to return any rent payment or keep it and try to rebut the presumption that keeping the payment reinstates the lease.