I just had tenants move out of my investment property (duplex) without paying for the last month's rent, and the damage they inflicted onto the property exceeds their security deposit amount. Security deposit will take care of the last month of unpaid rent, but I'm considering filing a small claims court lawsuit to get a judgement for recoverable damages. As you probably guessed from the unpaid rent, the tenants did not leave a mail forwarding address that I could serve them court papers at.
Any advice on: 1.) What's the highest success percentage method to find a previous tenant's new address for this? 2.) If damages are about $4,000, would you take your tenants to small claims court, or is it not worth it and why?
Waste of time. Just deduct security deposit and move on. If you insist, try skip tracing if you have one of their phone numbers. Might take a few months for the new address to show up on those apps. But again, probably not worth the hassle.