Unruly leaseback tenants

[David Bunyea]

So, I recently purchased a new house. My plan is to move into it and lease out the house we're currently in. It is my first time being a landlord.

The sellers of the new house requested a leaseback for 10 days after closing. We closed yesterday and the contract states that they will provide us keys upon closing and that they will grant access, with 24 hours notice, if I so choose during the leaseback. So... the fun part... the sellers did not leave keys with title. When I reached out to request the keys they started questioning why I wanted them. I informed them that the contract they signed stated that they would provide them and that should be reason enough. Long story short, they initially stated that they would not give me keys until they moved out. After a bit of back and forth (them calling me names, me stating facts as described in the purchase contract) they finally agreed to provide the keys in 2 days but remain defiant about my right to enter the property with proper notice (which really isn't a big deal, I didn't plan on doing that).

With the blatant disregard these sellers/tenants have already demonstrated I'm a bit worried about what might happen moving forward. Will they intentionally damage the house prior to vacating? Will they vacate on the date agreed upon in the contract? Will they do something crazy I haven't even thought of? 

So, yeah... this has been fun so far. I'm looking for advice on what to do if they remain non-compliant and potentially damage the property or fail to vacate on time. Would I have to go through the normal eviction process? Can I even evict them if I needed to? Is there something worse I'm not thinking of that I should look out for? 

Thank you in advance for any feedback.

[Theresa Harris]

Hindsight is great, but you should have had a large amount of money held back until they were out.