Can a tenant be evicted for not paying lates? in FL

Question

• Context, my lease charges fees for every day rent is late. It does not say anything else on late fees but the amount, and that it is per day.
• 
• - Can I issue a 7 day notice to cure for not paying late fees?

• - If so, can I evict if repeated violations occurs in a 12 month period (paying rent late again)? FL statue 83.51 (2)(a) and (2)(b).

• - If they do pay the late fees, can I refuse payment and proceed with eviction anyway?

• - Can I deduct late fees from next month’s rent and the difference be considered late rent? In which then a 3-day notice would come into play. Note: My lease agreement does not say anything about late fees becoming part of the rent.

Matthew Masoud · Answer

Last fees must be paid in order to cure the default.

Yes you can issue notice to cure not paying late fees.

Yes after a certain period of time you can refuse payment and proceed with eviction.

Thankfully, Florida is very landlord friendly.

Find a good eviction attorney and prepare to file, they should also be answering your questions for free.

I've done evictions in Florida where my attorney charged me $650, so it's not as pricey as you may think.

Drew Sygit · Answer

You should check with an experienced landlord-tenant (eviction) attorney regarding your late fees.

First, are they permissable by law.

Second, even if they are, how will judges actually treat them?

You'd be surprised on how leeway district court judges have in enforcing the law and their own views. Once spoke to a judge about late fees in Metro Detroit and the judge flat out stated he thought $x was all that should be charged and all that would be allowed on any case he handled. Typically, your only recourse to challenge a district court judge's ruling is to appeal to circuit court - which is relatively expensive! The judges know this, so do as they please.

Jay Michalec · Answer

Typically a seven day notice is used for non compliance, and not for payments. The three day notice is designed for that. And, the lease is the gospel. So it depends on what is in the lease as far as what happens with late fees, and also with a failure to pay them. Same goes for the grace period. There is no requirement legally, what matters is what the lease says. We manage 250 properties in Florida (mainly the greater Tampa Bay Area) and fortunately have less than a 1% eviction rate due to our diligence in the screening process , along with being proactive and communicative. When we do have to go through the eviction, we do everything for our landlords and they pay our evictions team around $550. Eviction is done in 4-6 weeks, including the coordinated Sherrif visit.

Matthew Masoud · Answer

Not sure what his pricing is now,it's been a while

Seward Law Office, P.A. at 813-252-6789

Jonathan Blanco · Answer

I called and now they charge $1450, so I guess it has been a while lol!

Adam Bartomeo · Answer

We have evicted tenants do to not paying fees.

It would not be a 7 day notice, it would be a 3 day notice.

If they pay their full balance you will not be able to evict.

We always apply the rent towards the oldest balance.

Eviction should ALWAY be the last step after you have exhausted all other means of collection. You shouldn't step over dollars to pick up penny's, if you have a paying tenant then work with them to get the balance to zero.

Jay Michalec · Answer

Yes sir. I am the COO and part owner. I sent you a private message with a link to schedule a call with me. Looking forward to connecting!

Jonathan Blanco · Answer

Hey Jay, you work for (or own) a property management company? Can I ask you some questions on your screening process? Also, Im interested in the eviction company you use.

Wesley W. · Answer

Another solution to this problem in the future would be to move to a MTM contract.  I wrote about it recently here.

Mya Toohey · Answer

I'm in the Tampa area.  By law tenants have until the 5th of each month to pay.  Landlord's can then give 3 day notice after that.  If you don't pay or vacate they can proceed with eviction.  The Sherrif takes about 2-3 weeks to do set out from what I've heard.

Can a tenant be evicted for not paying lates? in FL

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