Becoming Who You Want To Be

To evict a tenant you first must give them a Notice of Termination.

You can evict tenants who are on a month-to-month lease simply by giving your tenant 30 days or 60 days advance written notice. The form is called a 30-Day Notice or a 60-Day Notice. In some states 30 days is required, in other states 60 days is required.

Laws differ in various states regarding what is an acceptable circumstance under which a 30 Day Notice can be served.

Exercise caution when it comes to subsidized housing programs. These programs often limit the reasons for which a tenant can be evicted.

Some cities are rent control cities where a landlord must prove that he is evicting a tenant for a “just cause”.

An eviction can never be retaliatory or discriminatory in nature.

There are basically 3 types of Notice of Termination forms that you can use to evict a tenant.

The notice called Pay Rent Or Quit is sent to a resident who has not paid rent. This notice commands the tenant to pay his rent or move. The resident is given anywhere from 3 days to 30 days to pay the rent depending on your local laws.

Cure or Quit notices: This notice is given to tenants whove violated one of the conditions you listed in your rental contract. It tells your tenant to cure the violation in a limited number of days (determined by state law) and vacate the premises, or be subject to an eviction action.

There is a notice called a Notice to Quit or Unconditional Quit which just tells the resident to move without giving them a chance to fix anything or to pay anything. This form basically just commands the tenant to pack his things up and get out by a certain date. I recommend you never use this notice. In the few court cases that a tenant has won against a property owner, it was because the owner served the tenant with this notice. You should only use this notice if the resident has severely damaged your rental unit or has committed some illegal act like robbery or murder. Never be lazy and use this form for all of your evictions.

Now keep in mind that after serving one of these notices, a tenant is not automatically evicted if he refuses to leave.

You need to start the eviction process.

You need to file the proper forms with your local court and have the tenant correctly served with a summons and complaint. The form you use for the complaint can be provided by the court and when you fill it out, you must not put on it anything but unpaid rent or actual property damages. You can NOT put late charges or other fees on this form. If you do, it is likely that your complaint will be denied by the court.

Most new owners make a mistake on how they serve the tenant. Do not just slip this notice under the door or stick it in the mail. You need to follow your state’s rules for what constitutes correct legal service. There is the age of the person serving the notice, the method of delivery, and so on. Check with your local attorney for the laws of service in your city.

The court will set a date to hear your case and your tenant will be given a certain amount of time to file an answer to your summons and complaint.

Most often the legal summons and complaint scares the tenant as they know that theyve materially breached their rental contract and voluntarily leave the premise. Or sometimes tenants settle with you out of court.

If the tenant settles with you out of court, that’s fine but you must officially dismiss your eviction with the court.

If your resident thinks he can ignore your summons and complaint he is mistaken. The court will move forward with the eviction process without the resident.

If the tenant does not show, this is called an uncontested eviction. The court will still hear your case but without the tenant present to argue your charges, you will win. Just make sure you bring all your paperwork and provide the court with good documentation of every single one of your charges.

4. If your tenant files an answer and appears at court, each party receives the opportunity to present its evidence before the court makes a ruling.

The court calls this a contested eviction. If you have all your paperwork and proof in order and professionally present yourself and the facts, you generally will win. But if you have acted illegally to evict the tenant you will not.

5. After you win the eviction suit with the court, you then give the court judgment to your local police department.

The local police will contact the tenant and tell them to move immediately by a certain date of face a lock out. A lock out is when the police come to your rental unit and physically remove the tenant and all her belongings from your rental. Make sure you have a locksmith meet the police at your rental and change the locks as soon as you regain legal possession of your rental.

Use an attorney to handle the eviction process. The filing and serving of eviction actions must be done in a very precise way. One little mistake can result in delays or even a lost case. Even if the tenant clearly violated your rental contract.

Find a law firm that specializes in property management law with an “eviction and collection” legal department.

If you hire an eviction and collection law firm, they do everything for you. They will file all notices with the court, properly serve the tenant, and even call the police to schedule the lock out. They have their own collections department that will collect on any past due rent and deal with negatively impacting a tenants credit report until they do pay you and the law firm in full. Often such an eviction and collection law firm charges $300 upfront and then splits what they collect from the tenant with you half and half: they get half and you get half. This service often more than pays for itself in terms of your time and stress. They speed the eviction along and most often they will evict your tenant in only 30 days saving you weeks and sometimes months worth of lost rental income. A good eviction and collection law firm or property management company is worth their weight in gold.