Self-help, in the context of a legal doctrine, refers to individuals exercising their rights without resorting to legal writs or consulting higher authorities. This occurs, for example, when a financial institution repossesses a car on which it holds both the title and a defaulted note. Individuals may resort to self-help when they retrieve property under the unauthorized control of another person or abate nuisances, such as using sandbags and ditches to protect land from flooding.
A self-help eviction refers to a commercial landlord's common law right to peaceably reenter their property to evict a defaulting tenant or other person with no right of possession.[1]