Cash for Keys or Eviction we gave the tenant a choice

[Charles M.]

Good Morning BP, I am currently helping my out of state investor manage his properties.  I handle the maintenance and most decisions regarding his properties, we do have a property management company handling the rents and admin stuff.  

Anyways, here is our situation, in March our former property management company placed a tenant and his wife in a unit.  In June we let informed the property management company that we were switching companies (due to some issues with billing and such) at the end of the month.  July comes and the new company took over only to find out that the tenant had not paid Junes rent, can you see why company 1 was fired?   

When the new company inquired the tenant informed us that his wife had moved out and that he had been laid off (think the two were connected in a way) and that he would pay a little each week to get caught up.  

I told the property manager to offer 350 for cash for keys if he was out by Friday, as a manager he had never heard of something like this and after a little resistance and me explaining the number difference he agreed.  If the tenant does not agree to this then we will file an eviction.  I will keep the community informed as to how this plays out.  This is a first for me and for the landlord so we will be learning a lot in the next few weeks I guess.  

[Thomas S.]

I personally have a no bribe policy. If you are going to go down that rabbit hole you should not offer a bribe before you start the eviction process. Most tennats know they can drag out a rent free situation for months otherwise.

By not filing first yu are wasting valuble time in protecting your investment.

Always begin th eviction before you offer a bribe otherwise they have no incentive to accept.