This is about as comprehensive as it gets. If you are a landlord or are thinking about getting into rental properties, you'll want to read and save this one.
Great Guide, I like how you kept it generic enough not to get someone in trouble by having them look up the specific state laws. I've been in this game a little over 5 years and been through about 6 evictions in our tenant friendly state of Connecticut. I even created a process map a few years ago to keep me on my toes when doing the evictions. The last few evictions have been no shows which keeps evictions from start to finish about 6 weeks but on average they are about 3 months by the time they are gone. I'll admit I would rather do the eviction than cash for keys.
I have had to do 2 evictions in my short career as a landlord.
One (my first) was without an attorney. I used a property management company for this one and that did not help at all. This took me over 6 months to evict the tenant. This eviction was far more costly as the damages to my property by the tenant was more than I could afford to fix.
Two was with an attorney. The second was expensive but it took a fraction of the time and cost. Attorney's are worth it in that regard. But this also caused me a great deal of stress and financial loss such that I gave up on being a landlord and found rentals to non profitable.
20 years later, I have been rethinking this process and am considering getting back into it. Good tenant screening seems to be the answer and I thought I was doing it well before but clearly I was not.
Very well done, and interesting. As a real estate attorney in New York City I see landlords through evictions almost every day. This could be very informative
Joshua Dorkin, thank you for taking the time to put this out! I've been a landlord for 15 years and did my first eviction last summer. Presently I'm doing two more... For anybody this will benefit I'll share the experience and lessons learned.
Over the previous 14 years I'd had tenants who paid late or missed payments. But I was always able to work things out with them; either a payment plan or they just agreed to move out (sort of "cash for keys" without the cash - just the lost rent). And that worked until I met... we'll call them "Loser 1 and Loser 2" (no bitterness here...).
Aside from being horrible tenants; always late with the rent, combative in nature and mean to the other residents, they stopped paying rent altogether in spring of 2019. I went to the Madison County Courthouse (IL), who were (and are) very helpful in describing the process, much was as described in Joshua Dorkin's guide. First was a 5-Day Notice to Quit, which I taped to their door and photographed. After the five days I filed ($264.00) with the county and paid for the Sheriff's department to serve the summons. (Lesson learned/mistake #1). Madison County Sheriff's Dept. charges about $150.00 for this. They knock once. If it doesn't work they'll retry for another $150.00. The second time around I used a local process server ($60.00 for the first person, $30 for the second) and they got it done.
Going in to court, I was super anal-retentive. I wore a tie, called the judge "your honor", made copies of all of our texts, brought the lease, and a spreadsheet of all they owed. I made copies for the judge and for the defendants. The judge set a move out date and ordered a financial settlement (rent plus court costs but no late fees). I don't expect to see a cent of that. The defendants filed for an extension to the move out date, which the judge denied.
At the move out date it took all my self discipline not to be sitting in the parking lot with a bowl of popcorn and a beer. (Did I mention bitter?) They acted like they didn't know it was coming - even answered the door in their jammies (you can't unsee some things). The deputy had to inform them "You don't live here any more. Right now you're trespassing." They drug it out for hours. Finally the deputy told them "At 3:30 I'm removing you in handcuffs." That warmed my heart...
When they were finally gone I entered the house with the deputy, and filmed everything while the deputy was there and watching. To be fair, since I criticized the Sheriff's department in the earlier reference the summons service, I must say they were AWESOME here: very patient, made sure the tenants left and protected me by making sure I did everything correctly.
Eviction number 2 (In process).
This one hurts. Nice people. A family of four. But I did everything I could. I will say that now that I understand more about Fair Housing Laws and Illinois Landlord/Tenant law, I am far less inclined to "work with" anybody. If you treat one tenant differently from another, and they find out, you could be facing a lawsuit. After reading "Landlording on Autopilot" I've gotten healthily paranoid about this.
From day one they were never on time with their rent. They were living in a 4br 3 ba house which was more expensive than most rentals around here. When if became apparent they would be struggling the whole time I offered to let them out of their lease, which they declined. I then tried cash for keys. They wanted to stay. I posted the 5 day notice but found out when I went to file that Illinois no longer allows landlords to post the notice on the door; it must me handed to the tenant directly. (They say this has always been the rule but allowed posting it on the door in the previous eviction). After that I used the process server to serve the summons.
The main thing is I was able to maintain a line of communication with the tenants throughout this process, which was huge. I continuously begged them to, for their own good, find a new place, which they finally did. Presently we still have a court date for a settlement but there will be no eviction. I was not looking forward to the sheriff showing up. No popcorn and beer for this one...
The last one is still in progress. Almost identical to the second eviction described above except I'm still waiting on her move-out date (she says this week). But there were a couple idiosyncrasies in this case which might be beneficial to mention:
I found out she had been borrowing money from my (too good-natured and trusting) handyman to pay the rent. He can ill afford this and will never see a penny of payback.
Also , she tried to avoid the issue by not communicating or answering the door. This proved a challenge, given that the 5 day notice has to be served in person (or via registered mail, which she would've ignored). In Illinois it's required that a landlord give 24 hours notice before entering the premises. But it doesn't say you have to enter. So I gave her 24 hours notice. The next day I texted her again, giving her another 24 hours notice. I did this for several days (the boy who cried wolf). Finally,24 hours after the last notice, I texted her saying, "I'm coming in now. I'll knock first". I also asked a local police officer to join me, in case things got ugly and also to have a witness. She was home and I served the notice.
Lessons:
1. Be careful when trying to work with somebody who is struggling. It's easy to accidentally violate fair housing laws by giving someone a chance that you didn't give somebody else. Also you can be just prolonging the agony.
2. Document, document, document!!! I saved the texts as PDFs. Bring everything to court you might think is relevant.
3. Use a private process server for serving the summons. Not that expensive and they do a thorough job.
4. If you have what you think may be a contentious meeting with a tenant or would like a witness, ask the local police to come. They don't mind doing this and can even give helpful advice.
5. (Maybe should be 1). I obviously needed to improve my screening. Who gave them the keys??? I did. (Sigh) And each one of them had me squirming as we signed the lease. I now use an external screening service who simply gives me a "Recommended/Not Recommended" after they run the apps. So far they've done great and it takes that liability off of me.
If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in this situation please PM me. I'm far from being an expert but I'd be happy to share my experiences with you.
@Marvin Meng Thanks for sharing. I’ve represented clients in neighboring counties where the judge effectively required the 5 Day Notice be served by the Sheriff’s Department. Seriously. Goes to show how nuanced evictions can be, even within the same State!
@Marvin Meng Great post. Thanks for sharing that. I was starting to get emotionally invested! I had tenants (my first ones ever) who I had to threaten with eviction and fortunately left willingly the day before I filed (and left $1,000 worth of damage)!
@Marvin Meng Great post. Thanks for sharing that. I was starting to get emotionally invested! I had tenants (my first ones ever) who I had to threaten with eviction and fortunately left willingly the day before I filed (and left $1,000 worth of damage)!
Sorry to hear that. So many times I've been cringing while I signed a lease only later to realize what a mistake I'd made. I finally quit trusting myself to do the screening and switched to a screening service who never meets the applicants. I blindly follow their recommendation. This isn't always easy. Right now I have a $1500.00/month property sitting vacant. I've had to turn down two applicants who, if it had been up to me, I would've approved (probably). I'll PM you the name of the screening company (if I can figure out how). I recommend them highly although BP doesn't like posting names of companies in the forums.
Thanks. I'd appreciate that. Since then I've learned a lot and recently denied 4 applicants for a recent vacancy I had before I found someone that I felt comfortable with and met all of my qualifications. As hard as it is to do sometimes I think it's all about developing good qualifications and sticking to them at all costs and if you have to deviate, don't deviate a lot and make sure you grab extra security deposit. If I had gotten a double security deposit from those first tenants I wouldn't have been out any money at the end of the day. I had legitimate reason to ask for a double security deposit but didn't. Live and learn I guess.
If a tenants lease expires and you have given them written notice you will not be renewing their lease, but they don’t leave, what is the process to remove them from the premises? Is that still called an eviction?
I think that's called a holdover tenant, and you can file in court to get them out; unfortunately, courts are currently closed (at least in MD), so if you're in the same situation as me, it's just a waiting game until the courts re-open for these matters. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place right now for tenants that are not current on rent, and are not moving out. Started the eviction process in March, right before the courts shut down. Stressed out.
Per this resource I found... https://www.rentprep.com/legal/hold-over-tenant-what-if-renter-doesnt-leave/ "Evicting a hold over tenant may be slightly different in your state than evicting a tenant under a provision in a lease. To evict a hold over tenant, the landlord must treat the tenant as a trespasser who does not have permission to be on the property and who is acting wrongfully by staying on the property from the moment the lease ends. The best way to deal with a trespasser will depend on the laws of your state and locality."
Quick question for the group. With the local landlord-tenant courts on freeze right now, what are your suggestions to my current predicament (this is in MD)?
- Tenants behind on rent (non-payment) since February. (Lots of backstory from tenants on reasons, etc., with no proof provided).
- I filed for a failure-to-pay filing in the local jurisdiction court system (through a 3rd party company) the week when the emergency declaration was made and the courts were shut down subsequently, and evictions were put on hold.
- Tenants are not communicating/responding to rent requests, and in my opinion, are riding this out. Keep saying they'll be moving out, but multiple move-out dates mentioned by them have come and gone.
Am I just stuck in a holding pattern? Should I prepare for a small claims/civil court filing in preparation to evict AND go after the tenants whenever the courts open back up?
Yes, you and EVERYONE else is in a holding pattern until this is resolved. Continue to file failure to pay and watch the Amounts that you don't exceed the $5000.00 limit for small claims.
If you have a mortgage conttact your lender immediately.
If you think this is going to go on for a long time. Offer your tenants $$ to move immediately. It's better to get a new paying tenant for 12+ months than to keep a Non Paying tenant.
Brian Van Pelt Can you explain more on the $5000 for small claim court? I have a tenant who is over $10000 due.. and refuse to leave or pay. He tried to catch up until he got laid off. Also I am in Seattle so things are worse... due to City Council that extended the eviction moratorium. The tenant will lease will expire in August. I am hoping he leaves but again who knows... Any advice is great.
I have a tenant who I think is trying to take advantage the virus situation. He has had a history of late pay. In the pass, he paid and called it a day. This is the longest time frame he gone without paying 18 days. Has anyone had an issue with tenants not paying do to the virus?
Hello- anyone out there know if you can evict a tenant if their lease is up but they refuse to sign another lease ( they want tenant at will) ? The lease ends May 31, and they have sent a check for June rent which we have not cashed as then this will auto convert to a tenant at will. They are also refusing a $100 a mos increase per mos. (combined these folks make over 500k a year!).
In MA - which has a moratorium on evictions currently due to covid.
Unfortunately you can do nothing to get them to leave. As you noted, in Massachusetts ALL non-essential evictions are on hold regardless of whether you receive federal funds for tenants or if you have a federally backed loan.
You can't evict for nonpayment, no fault/no cause, or any fault/cause except
Criminal activity that impairs health and safety of other residents, health care workers, emergency personnel, persons lawfully on the subject property, or the general public (collectively, “others”);
Lease violations that may impact the health or safety of “others”.
So the only evictions that can proceed will be directly related to health and safety.
Unfortunately, the MA specific moratorium doesn't have a clear end date yet. It runs until August 18, 2020 or 45 days after the end of the state of emergency declared March 10 - whichever comes later.
There seems to be two categories of non-paying tenants. First, one that had lost their job as a direct result of COVID-19. The other is someone that is simply working the system just because they can.
I will work with someone that is in the first category but not the other!
Be sure to work with an attorney that specializes in eviction. My attorney does 250 eviction claims per month!
