All Forum Posts by: Daryl Luc

You need to be in contact with your tenant directly to do due diligence before you shoot yourself in the foot. I would say based on what you now produced, that you need to tread lightly regarding this person.

What is in your lease may or may not be acceptable within your state statutes.  If you wrote your lease and it was reviewed by an attorney, you may have a good lease, but it doesn't address getting her out or keeping her away.  Visitors and guests happen.  Based only on what you provided, I would think a judge would tell you to go away and start over.  Why?...well your lease clause as written is discriminatory.  What if they want to adopt?  What limitations and permissions are stipulated on guests or visitors?  Does it stipulate a process for adding tenants to a in force lease...  and so on. 

Yeah, it sounds good to be the tuff guy and hold someone's feet to the fire until you discover how much that ultimately costs you!  Let her go.  The sooner the better.  Keep the deposit, set a deadline to be out and immediately start looking for a replacement. From my seat at this table, the worst situation is she leaves in the middle of the night just before Christmas, you are now faced with the three worst months for renting and you have an empty unit that you have to heat with the fewest good rental prospects looking to move in the snow and cold.

To answer your question: yes you can evict.  The difficulty is where you are and where the property is.  There are several steps you will need to take..with or without a lawyer.  First, Put a 'three day quit or pay notice' on the entrance door to the property being occupied by this individual!  You may also send certified mail.  If this is something new to you (remote property management), do some research or get an attorney.  I've seen landlords that want to discuss this with the tenant, negotiate based on the 'why' and so on.  Don't waste your time.  Landlording is not a touchy feely business for the timid.
If you get a negative response, then immediately begin the process.  Your local clerk of courts may walk you through it or you may have to get an attorney.  If the clerk helps you, it may cost $50-$100.  An attorney may run up to two grand...check on that.
Next, if the tenant responds positively to your quit or pay, you need to present a lease with a due date for signature, a condition report with a due date for signature, a security deposit requirement. etc.
Your in a business and not all customers are as up front and fair as you.  There's an old saying among motorcyclists....dress for the slide, not the ride.  Do you think the seller gifted you this problem tenant....sort of like a seller leaving off the disclosure form that the basement leaks every time it rains.

Back up as in your hypothesis isn't based on reality.  I don't know what state your situation is in, but most likely there's not a single law on the books there that runs counter to what I explained.  A lease is a contract.  A contract requires the following: performance, compensation and competency.  Tort, the law of contracts prevails regarding what is and isn't enforceable.

A lot of people put stuff in leases that aren't enforceable....unless the tenant succumbs to believing what's printed.  A tenant that walks and wants their prepaid rent returned probably knows a lot more about contracts than you do.  There are tons of leases with signatures on them that weren't written by a lawyer, weren't reviewed by a lawyer (by either the landlord or the tenant!)  I suggest for your situation, if not a 'what if', you get with a local attorney and have them explain to you what is and what isn't.
My opinion as to your second 'what if', no... you don't get to keep the 5 months rent.  As I said, just about any court in the country would see a civil charge against you for unjust enrichment and if found against you for trying to keep 100%...punitive damages would be a likely outcome.  Double or Treble depending on statute.  What's the amount you're entitled to?  That's why you need an attorney to pose these questions to before they happen.

Ok, your situation is in Ohio and I'm in Ohio so here's the deal.  If there's a known new address for her, then go to the post office and forward all her mail to that address immediately.  Anything coming from that point on should be returned to sender with 'no known address for addressee' on the outside of the envelope.
Someone has to go to the property with a copy of the lease in hand and sit outside waiting for her to show up. If and when she does, she has to be presented with the following options: 1. fill out an application, pay the background check fee and then be ready to sign the lease and become jointly and separately responsible for the rent and any other stipulations of the lease if she passes the criteria you have in place for evaluating tenants.  If she doesn't pass, she can't live there or you'll have the sheriff get involved. Unfortunately, that will require that you obtain a judges order.  
Or 2. she takes her things immediately and stays away never to return.... I don't have a copy of your lease so I have absolutely no idea what it says about visitor length of stay, conversion from visitor to tenant etc. but now you've learned a lesson.  Every lease needs to contain that sort of language or you have squatters, not visitors, not girlfriends, but squatters.  And in most states, squatters are harder and more expensive to rid than tenants.  BTW, I'd definitely want to see the restraining order refusal from the court.  Sounds really fishy.  Now...be prepared for the fact that they are likely to get back together and she'll be back on good terms with him.  Let's say your lease says that any guest or visitor staying for seven days in any thirty day period must go through the process to become a signatory to the least or move out, then you, not your tenant have the power and authority to go to the court and get a restraining order if she's there on an eighth day in violation of the terms and conditions.

Simple three tab asphalt is the smart way to spend your money.  That becomes a maintenance expense.  Anything else is an upgrade and now you have to account for that as an improvement similar to if were to add a deck to a property that previously didn't have one.  This now means the improvement is depreciated whereas the maintenance expense is deducted in the year made.  Any excess of the deduction that creates a loss can be carried into the next year(s) to offset profit/income until used.

Originally posted by @Anthony Rivera:

Many posts indictate that if the tenant moves out, the landlord must return all remaining pre-paid rent. That doesn't apply if the tenant breaks the lease and is responsible for the remainder of the rent due under the lease agreement, or 2 months rent, depending on whether there is an early termination addendum. Am I wrong? 

I have a applicant for my $1300/mo rental in a senior community, who has a 720 credit score, is 58, retired, has savings from a home sale, and has a pension of $750/mo, and is offering a full year, plus security dep, up front. Thoughts on this and above?

Back up...they are not responsible for the remainder of the rent.  Find a local attorney who is versed in landlord tenant law for your state and get their input because I'm only knowledgeable about mine.  If you get pulled into small claims by a tenant who wants their "xtra" rent back, most likely a judge will ignore what you have in your lease regarding money owed, breaches etc. and look to you to explain what you have done and are doing since the move out to re-rent the property as fast as possible.  Ok?  Read that again.  Now, if you are re-renting or making every effort, the judge will not let you keep all the rent. One, two months max is usual and customary.....even in a crappy (slow) market.  It would be called 'unjustified enrichment' to allow that to happen if you were holding several months rent that was unearned and sitting on a vacant or even worse, a newly occupied with a replacement tenant.  How much will you keep....I don't know.  It depends on the circumstances and situation, but you are not in the driver's seat.

As one other response shared, any rent in hand beyond the security deposit and first month (+last if your state law permits) is not income in hand until the accrual transfers one month rent from the xtra security deposit account into the rent received account.  This is not a paper xfer but an actual transfer from an interest bearing account for that specific pile of money (not to be co-mingled with another tenant's deposit) into your operating funds account.  Do most landlords set themselves up this way...probably not.  But your first trip to the IRS will set you straight ... tute sweet.  The interest belongs to the tenant, not the landlord!  It becomes a proportioned distribution based on security deposit funds used for end of lease operations based on damages and general chargables.  If half is used for rehab prior to re-renting...then you split the interest earned 50/50. You need to ask yourself if you are up for all the record keeping.

You also need to ask the obvious...what else is a prospective tenant paying up front in advance...their car payments? Not likely.  Their credit card bills....not likely.  Groceries, gasoline, utilities?  You know why...there's not a single advantage to freezing their money into someone else's account without access to it.    So on face, my friend, there's no advantage to either party...so why do it?   WIFM= what's in it for me?

I buy the Home Depot brand.  If you pay to have someone do it for you, just figure it will cost about the same for the labor. If you can use scissors, a razor  knife and a tape measure without needing a trip to the hospital, you'll do fine on your  own.

As Nathan stated, he does the walk thru on move out alone. I prefer to not have the tenant along during that walk thru as well, but I have my real estate agent accompany me to observe and put their signature+credential id on the report. I've found that some small claims magistrates don't like to mess with movies and pics. He also will come to the court if I ask.....just in case. A word to the wise, if you think you will end up in a court, if you are an LLC, you can not represent yourself!

Legwork.  Every four months or so, I go onto one of the realty sites that let me filter the results.  My personal favorite is Hotpads.  It's got everything contained in the Zillow companies websites and is purely the rentals.  Once I have my scrubbed and filtered results, I sort the configs, (3/1, 4/2, duplex etc.) set a range of $ per square foot for each config based on their listings.  I then go look at a few to get a feel for actual v pictures, condition, street traffic etc.  All the things that matter to people when considering the value of one property over the other.  It tells me then what I need to give my prospects...why my property, and why it's priced as it is.  Trust me, if I have to, I can convince a woman with children, why she doesn't want to rent a house with granite or stainless appliances, which makes my listing more attractive even at the same price.  Without your legwork, you're not doing anything different than they can with their smartphone....    In marketing it's basically a SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.