When is attempting to recover past rent worthwhile?

Question

A tenant who lived in a single family home in South St Louis City moved out in early October while owing, by the most generous estimate, $2,725. She also left a huge amount of items behind, which cost me over $700 to clean up. I do have her phone number, current address (which is in Illinois, however) and SSN. As far as I know she is broke and has no income so I suspect it would be difficult to get any money out of her, unless she gets help from others.

Is this worth pursuing and if so how would you go about it?

Adam Martin · Answer

Realistically you are unlikely to collect the money however I would try.  The biggest question here is what is your time worth and are you more likely to make more money doing something else than chasing this money.  For me principal is important and I'd take it to small claims, and get a judgement.  From here depending on state laws I would either try to garnish wages or just send to collections.  While you aren't going to collect on them all every so often someone needs to clear their credit for a large purchase or for a job and this is a numbers game.  If you don't try I guarantee you get nothing.  Ideally this is not a regular occurrence but eventually if you have to do this more you will eventually get lucky.  Lets not forget the self satisfaction on justice with maybe a side of vengeance sprinkled in.  If we were all a little more diligent with these tasks we would be better as a whole as we would be warned in the background check, people usually don't do this just once.  I just reread and edited but she may be broke now but she hopefully wasn't when you screened her and won't be forever.

Greg M. · Answer

When is it not worth it? When the tenant is deceased and their estate has been settled and there are no assets.

A deadbeat today may become a model citizen tomorrow. They may get a job, get an inheritance, tax refund, married to an upstanding citizen, etc. They may want to buy a home and need the judgment removed from their credit report to get approved. Get the judgment and turn it over to a collection agency for a cut of the recovered.

Judgments last 10 + 10 years. People can change a lot over that time and there are a ton of opportunities to collect.

Isaac Pepper · Answer

@Gualtiero Piccinini

You'll get the judgment. But will you collect? Probably not. Will a collection company collect? Probably not. And if they do, they'll take at least 20%.

Find and execute something that provides greater return and is less stress.

Scott M. · Answer

All depends on state laws that govern this. A poster I think from the NE I forget what state and don't want to guess told a fantastic story about collecting back rent. So some states make it easy. Some make it impossible. It is important to think about the costs of time/effort and what you can realistically do. Getting a judgement is generally easy. Collections is the tough part. So, is your time/effort worth getting the judgement and then turning over to a collections agency? Or to do nothing? Or to try and do collections yourself? What do you need a lawyer for, how much will that cost etc.

It is easy to get lost in the 'but I am owed 2K' and then end up spending more than that in your time and effort.

Look up state laws on collections as there may be simple things you can do to garnish funds.

It is easy to get lost in the 'but I am owed 2K' and then end up spending more than that in your time and effort.

Look up state laws on collections as there may be simple things you can do to garnish funds.

George Skidis · Answer

My biggest concern is did she give notice and turn in the keys or do you "think" she moved out. Without proof she surrendered the property she might come and ask for her stuff back.

The next item is turning it over to a collection agency. They work for a fee. Try that and save yourself the headache.

Theresa Harris · Answer

You have a security deposit that will offset some of that cost. Make sure you send her a note to tell her she will not be receiving any of her deposit back and list the charges.  You can tell her she has a set time to pay the outstanding amount, but chances are you won't ever see it.  Try small claims courts.  Stick to the basic facts and have all the info ready.

Bud Gaffney · Answer

@Gualtiero Piccinini literally never.

When is attempting to recover past rent worthwhile?

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