Evict Now or Later: Tenant w/ Partial Temporary Rental Assistance

Evict Now or Later: Tenant w/ Partial Temporary Rental Assistance

Investor · Ewing, NJ · Member since 2015 · 15 posts · 4 votes

I currently have a tenant living in my condo in Middlesex County. When he moved in in March 2020 we did a walkthrough inspection and he confirmed everything was fine. He paid the security deposit and first month's rent. And that's when he became a headache literally since day 1. 

Here is a summary of issues with the tenant
1. Made a dozen bogus claims of issues in the property starting with the day he moved in even with a walkthrough inspection the day before
2. Refused entry multiple times for attempts to address said issues
3. Stopped paying rent since day 1. I offered cash for keys be he refused.
4. Threatened me with lawyers for not addressing issues with the property (both of which resigned when they found out that he is full of it)
5. Has his gf and daughter housed with him even though he told me it was just him before move-in and they are not on the lease
6. Housed several pets including a dog and birds even though they are against the terms of the lease
7. Incurred HOA fees charged to me as the owner for his gf not pick up after walking their dog
8. Verbally abusive and consistently lies about everything
9. Claimed that he wanted to return the microwave included in the lease, but then gave me a smaller, broken microwave (I have proof that the microwave is different with pictures from the pre-move-in inspection and the lease lists the brand)

So of course we have a whole mess exacerbated by COVID & the eviction moratorium.  Now that the moratorium has finally ended, I'm told that the wait time for an eviction claim to be heard is over a year. Now with the semi-good news: He ended up getting rental assistance. With the alternative being losing rent for a whole year on top of the year that he owes already, I agreed to lower his rent so that the temporary rental assistance program would accept him.

Now the problem is the temporary assistance program is paying part of his rent but he still refuses to pay his part. So now I'm losing about $150/month. I've told him that he is required to pay his part or he will lost rental assistance. But he outright said that he doesn't care, supposedly because his lawyer told him that he has to pay all of that money back afterwards. Does anybody know if this is true?

Unfortunately as part of an agreement with the program, I'm not allowed to evict him for 60 days.

So my questions are:
1. Can I still file for eviction now since he's not paying his part while still collecting the portion received from rental assistance?
2. If not, should I start an eviction anyways at the risk of losing $1800/month for a year instead of $150/month? I suspect I will eventually have to evict him anyways because he has proven to be consistently difficult. But should I wait until the eviction wait time lessens?
3. Are there other alternatives?

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  • Nathan GesnerBusiness Member
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    Real Estate Broker · Cody, WY · Member since 2010 · 28k+ posts · 41k+ votes
    4y

    He violated every term of the contract for two years, you made a new agreement with him, and you expect him to abide by it?

    He will never get better. You will have to evict and I doubt you'll collect a dime of what is owed. Find a good attorney and be prepared to pay for an expensive lesson.

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  • Investor · Ewing, NJ · Member since 2015 · 15 posts · 4 votes
    4y
    Quote from @Nathan Gesner:

    He violated every term of the contract for two years, you made a new agreement with him, and you expect him to abide by it?

    He will never get better. You will have to evict and I doubt you'll collect a dime of what is owed. Find a good attorney and be prepared to pay for an expensive lesson.


     Thanks Nathan for the response. I agree with what you've said. But I guess the question is evict now? Or Later? I guess the best option would be to file for eviction now and get in line for a hearing while collecting the portion of rent paid by the state until I finally get scheduled hearing in court. But I guess the question is are there any legal ramifications for doing that? 

  • Member since 2020 · 11 posts · 0 votes
    4y

    Victor,

    I feel for you. Sounds like he had a plan to defraud you.

    My mom has a deadbeat tenant since Sept 2021 in Calif where it is super hard to evict. The PM is not helpful and just says the court sys is slow or just does not care about the landlords. Thank goodness the property is paid off but it is suppose to be income for my mom to live on.  I would imagine it's the PM job to start and follow up on the eviction process right? At this point I might have to engae a lawyer....which is $$$$

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