Preparing for a likely eviciton

[Dante Balassone]

eviction* (caught the typo in the heading after posting)

My wife and I inherited tenants with the property we bought last July outside of Philadelphia (Upper Darby).  One tenant has had continuous issues paying rent and was more than 10 days late this month, which is considered a nonpayment in PA.  We are now opting to terminate the month-to-month lease and require the tenant to vacate by April 1, but the tenant is refusing.  

We will likely have to initiate the eviction process in April so I am seeking an attorney (ideally flat rate for eviction) to process our open-and-shut case.  Any insight on the duration of this process will be be greatly appreciated too!

[Randall Alan]

In Florida it is pretty easy to file the paperwork yourself for an eviction.  It's literally copy and paste the names / addresses into the forms (which the county provides copies of where I live).  You pay your fee, and wait for it to make its way through the judge's docket.  The whole thing takes about 3 weeks.  

Maybe another landlord in Philly can speak to this possibility.  Why pay an attorney $500 for something you could possibly do yourself.  It likely won't be the last time you have to evict someone, so learning how to do it would be a cost savings down the line too.

One other suggestion... We can search cases in Florida and look at each of the docket items.  This would let you see most of the paperwork necessary to accomplish the process.  

Finally, I might suggest reaching out to your county clerk's office.  They are the ones that receive the paperwork.  If you find someone helpful there, they might could tell you if the paperwork is hosted online for landlord use (it is in our county... they literally have a page printed that says, "Here is step 1, 2, 3" and lays out the entire process.

All the best!

Randy