In the rental business, tenants' issues are much more complicated than renovation, repair and maintenance since there are no exact rules to follow up. Among the tenant's issues, the eviction is the most scary part and the last issue that every landlord/owner ever want to deal with. I can have a separate posting about "How to Avoid Eviction" later on. In this posting, I'd like to talk about how to deal with eviction once it takes place and how to get the eviction resolved peacefully for mutual benefits.
The eviction process may vary from state to state. However there are some principals that you should be aware of. If you are not familiar with the eviction process in your state, you may want to hire UD or eviction company. Normally they charge you a flat fee unless the case requires court hearing in case the defendants filed answer or response.
I am not here to teach you how to do eviction here in any particular state. I just want to share some commonly used techniques and strategies to achieve the goal that you can minimize the loss and damage.
1) First of all, you normally need to wait until one month is over before you can send an eviction notice. The reason is that we charge tenants rent in advance by 1st with late fee past 5th. The tenants have the right to pay until the end of the month with late fee charge if applicable. If you rush in by sending an eviction notice, the tenants may fight back at the court easily to invalidate your case.
2) If the tenants pay partial rent on continuous basis, you may need to make a judgment call. If the monthly difference can be compromised, you may consider a reduction of the monthly rent. You have to face the reality that your rent charge may be over their affordability. You may argue that you charge a fair market price. However the right price is depending on their income. The amount of reduction might be worth much more than a forcible eviction.
3) Talk to the tenants and see if they are willing to move out by giving them some free rent by extending the tenancy with some limited time frame such as one month for free. In this way, they can save money for the down payment for the next house they are going to move to. If they are willing to do this, you need to watch out timeline closely and see if they really follow up as they promised. This could be very tricky process. We can talk more about this strategy later.
4) Don't just talk in person or over the phone. Use email or text message so that you have a track record. Mark your calendar for any dates and amount they promised so that you can pin point to the tenant for further discussion later. Keep in mind that the tenants in this kind situation are most likely liars. You need to lower your expectation and prepare for the worst. At least, you keep the communication going if they respond.
5) Warn the tenants about upcoming eviction followed by wage garnishment if you know where they work and have steady pay at their work. Be careful when you do this. Some tenants can be irritated by a message like this. You need to work on your wording to raise the awareness and not irritate them. The message you want to bring to them is: a) you will lose a home b) you won't get away. Although you don't actually garnish their wage, which requires a separate legal process, unless it's worth for substantial amount of damage, you still want to show them that you have the power to make their life miserable too.
6) Finally you decided to give the a notice. If you plan to do so, cease communication for a few days. You don't want your defendants to be prepared to be served. You pretend that nothing happens before you start serving a notice.
7) Wait for your tenant's initial reaction once they are served with an eviction notice. If they contact you immediately, you listen to what they say. If they really take it seriously, you can work out a payment plan with them with a limited time window. If you have reasonable tenants, they may tell you that they are willing to move out if you give them some extra time. If they talk to you, you may have a good chance to work out a peaceful resolution.
8) If you can't reach a resolution or the response was silent for eviction notice, your next step is to file a complaint with the court. Unlike the eviction notice, you may want to use professional server, constable or even Sheriff to serve complaint and summons to show the tenants that you are really serious about this unlawful detainer case.
9) Another round negotiation may resume after the tenants have been served with the complaints and summons. This time, the tenants must take the case more seriously. You can further confirm if they will continue follow the plan that you discussed earlier and make a new plan. Once again, you may have a good chance to work out a resolution. You can also tell them that you will dismiss the case to remove the bad record if they comply.
10) Be cautious, you may not be allowed to contact tenants if you hired a lawyer to do the eviction for you. Even you do it yourself, you don't contact them once the eviction case is filed. You just wait for them to contact you.
11) Promise the tenants that you will consider to give them some money back if they surrender the house and return keys in good condition. Although this may not happen, you may use this leverage to calm them down not tearing up your property.
12) Silent response from tenants. If that's the case, you may have to proceed with the eviction process. The good news is that the tenants will not respond to the court and you can get a default judgment and writ of execution easily.
13) Defensive response from tenants. Very likely, this is an experienced tenant who knows how to delay the court process. They may file an answer or response with various excuses. In this case, the court will set up hearing. In this case, you need to show up at the court. I am pretty you can win easily but you have to make extra effort. To avoid this situation, try to be nice to the aggressive tenants who have experience with the eviction. Try to compromise with their requests with your promises even though it's empty promise. Don't argue with them how you will lose. Instead ask them what kind of help they need such as moving expenses, trucks for moving etc. I believe you can still work out something without showing up at the court.
Keep in mind that the tenants will eventually abandon the property. They just want to do everything possible to buy some time. They need the time to accumulate cash for the next place to move to and victimize the next landlord.
The point of this posting is to work with tenants like friends to minimize the damage. The tenant may vandalize your property if they get upset with you. If you try to help them to move out peacefully, they have no reason to make further damage to the property. However they may still leave a lot of trash at the property anyway.
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