Bad Tenants Want Lease Renewal

[Cathy S.]

Hi everyone.

I would like some suggestions on how I should approach this situation. I have a set of tenants who have been living in my rental for over a year (before I even bought my property) and their lease with me is ending end of next month.


During the last 12 months they have only paid rent three times. The other 9 months I got the rent directly from the city of San Diego through the Covid assistance program thankfully. These tenants only paid their rent on time a handful of times, are terrible at communicating and wouldn’t tell me that they weren’t going to pay rent before applying to the assistance program, and again did not pay rent for 9 months.


I texted them today asking what their plans are for when their lease ends end of next month and they wanted to a new lease “so they can save for a house”. I want them gone and obviously don’t want to renew. If I do nothing, their lease automatically becomes month to month (with an increase of $200/month on rent). If they don’t pay rent, I can just give them a 30 days’ notice and start the eviction process.

What should I do about this situation? Should I just put them on month to month or is there another way for me to get them to leave?

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Cathy S.:

Hi everyone.

I would like some suggestions on how I should approach this situation. I have a set of tenants who have been living in my rental for over a year (before I even bought my property) and their lease with me is ending end of next month.


During the last 12 months they have only paid rent three times. The other 9 months I got the rent directly from the city of San Diego through the Covid assistance program thankfully. These tenants only paid their rent on time a handful of times, are terrible at communicating and wouldn’t tell me that they weren’t going to pay rent before applying to the assistance program, and again did not pay rent for 9 months.


I texted them today asking what their plans are for when their lease ends end of next month and they wanted to a new lease “so they can save for a house”. I want them gone and obviously don’t want to renew. If I do nothing, their lease automatically becomes month to month (with an increase of $200/month on rent). If they don’t pay rent, I can just give them a 30 days’ notice and start the eviction process.

What should I do about this situation? Should I just put them on month to month or is there another way for me to get them to leave?

You should not ask them what they want to do. You should tell them that you are not renewing their lease and expect them to vacate.

What a surprise that they received nine free months of rent and now they're saving for a house. A perfect example of how fraudulent and broken our government is.