Tenant is months behind on Rent. Evict or not?
I have an inherited a property with tenants that are 10 months past due on rents.(approx 15K not including late fees).
The tenants are both on the lease (which is missing) and they are brother and sister. The lease would have been more than a year old and I'm sure they would be month-to-month according to the missing lease.
Long story short, my Dad transferred title of property to me and my mother. My Dad continued to manage property and collect rents. My Dad passed away and left the management of the property to a relative. Turns out relative was not communicating with the tenants.
I became aware of the issue and went to talk with tenants about the past due amount. Their story is that they attempted to pay the rent but the payment was refused and went back into their account. It does not seem like any effort real effort was made by person managing property to contact the tenants and the tenants did not make any real effort to contact the property manager.
My recent discussion with the tenants revealed they have spent all the money that should have been going to rent. On top of that one of the tenants lost their job due due to covid.
What they say they can do is pay 3K now, skip next month (in hopes brother gets work), and pay 200 on top of their original rent until they get current (which would take about 4 years.)
The rental amount is also 700 dollars below market if you were to believe Zillow.
There is also apparently some repairs that need to be done and the tenant stated to me that the house is not "up to code". I think their point being if I evict them I'm going to have to pour some money into the property. In my mind that has to happen regardless of what they do.
I'm concerned that without the lease and no information other than their names (i.e. no SS number) I will not be able to recover anything from the tenants.
Any advice on the best way to move forward is appreciated.
(After typing all this I feel as I might have the answer , but I still would like to hear from people that may have had similar experience)