Inheriting a Tenant upon Purchase

[Amina Porter]

Hello All.  I am interested in purchasing a property in the near future.  Would you recommend purchasing a property with a tenant already in place (as opposed to screening and installing the tenant from scratch)?  A big fear of mine is that, once the house closes, the tenant will immediately stop paying the rent (especially if they only have a few months left on their lease), just because they want to see if they can, and know that it will take a while to evict them.  Does this happen often? And is there a way to prevent it, or to see if the tenant was a problem prior to the purchase of the property?  Thanks.