Of course you want your property back as soon as possible with the least expense and grief. Well you should have thought about all these things before you rented to the deadbeat in the first place. Dont you screen prospective tenants? Did you run a credit check? What about talking to the last landlord? Well, what did you do? Just rent to the first person with some cash? Probably didnt even have all the cash at that. Ill bet at the last minute your new tenant came up a little short and you caved, letting him move in anyway. Sound familiar? I know a lot of you see yourself. We havent all been there, I know I have though. The rest of you are newbies or liars waiting to get an expensive lesson. I have rented to these people time and again; I do it with my eyes wide open and sometimes on purpose. Why you ask? Because sometimes it is easier. Because I need the quick cash sometimes. Because I dont have time to deal with a vacant run down house sometimes. Sometimes because I actually want to help someone. Anyway Im not talking about how to pick tenants, Im talking about getting rid of the one you have.
First the disclaimer, Im not giving legal advice and my perspective is from the great state of Oregon, where landlord tenant law protects tenant and landlord rights about equally. Lets assume your tenant among other things is not paying rent and youve already played all the games and fell for some of the lies pushing you as far as youre willing. For me this usually means Im ready with a new tenant or have time in my schedule to R&R the house (repair/rebuild) In Oregon each time you accept rent, even partial you give up the right to evict until the next rent is due. You can always give thirty days notice and then evict, but this is a long time to go without rent. I almost always evict for nonpayment of rent. Tenants have a seven day grace period, so after the rent is the seven days late (on the eighth day) you deliver in person to the tenant or anyone that answers the door, a seventy two hour notice, dont post it and run away. If you post it you then have to mail a copy and give them an additional three days. Come back repeatedly until you can hand it to someone. Make sure your notice names the tenant and all others(this doesnt mean write all their names, just write all others ) this way you can get rid of squatters and friends with the same FED filing. Dont go inside property to serve someone. That would be trespassing unless its a legitimate emergency. After three days (fourth day after serving notice) go to the county courthouse and file an FED with the clerk (forcible entry and detainer). They will have all the papers at the courthouse but you need to bring your copy of the seventy two hour notice and pay some fees of about $100. The clerk will schedule a first appearance usually eight days later. The sheriff will serve the first appearance papers on the tenant in a day or two. Now go home and forget about it until next week when you will want to get to the courthouse just a little early, partly for the slow line of people at the metal detector line, but also you want to meet your tenant and discuss things before court begins. Most likely your tenant will show up, it has always amazed me that so many people dont understand they either pay the rent or get out, but they show up at court trying to get an extension or something. Ok, here is what happens at the first appearance. The Judge will give a little 15 minute speech explaining the facts of life regarding you and your tenants choices which are one of two choices. #1 you and the tenant come to an agreement or #2 you and the tenant dont agree and ask for a trial next week. Thats it, two choices, pick one? Choose #1 you idiot, you dont want a trial. A trial costs more money and delays when you get your house back. If you have not yet made a deal with your tenant, when the judge will call your names he will ask you to go out in the hall and try to come to an agreement. Sometimes the judge will assign a mediator to keep you from name calling and help you to reach an agreement. If you would have talked to the tenant before court, you would simply tell the judge your agreement when he calls your name, and you would be on your way home by now. The agreement; this may be confusing but it is not at all. You simply need to agree on when the tenant is going to vacate the house, and if they will make any financial payment. Here is an example of what you would write (use court provided form, get from clerk) and hand to the judge. Tenant agrees to vacate house no later than midnight December 24th 2010 heres another, Tenant agrees to pay $3.50 on or before 12/24/10, $5.50 by 1/1/2011 and then vacate property before 6pm January 1st 2011 OK?, get the picture? Now hand the signed form to the judge or clerk. The judge will ask you both if it is correct, and its a done deal. What you now have is called a stipulated judgment and this is what you want more than anything in the world. Most likely your tenant has been making and breaking promises to you for some time and this one is no different, except when he fails to follow any part of your stipulated judgment, at your option you now go straight to the County Sheriff and ask for enforcement, no court, no judge. You pay a small service fee, a Deputy Sheriff serves a three day notice, and on the fourth day you request to complete the eviction. This means the Sheriff will on the fifth day physically remove your tenant and put him and all his children out on the street. You are now alone in your trashed rental surveying all the repairs needed. If the tenant left behind any belongings you must safeguard them, and give them back if the tenant asks (for free) you cant hold his stuff for ransom. However after the required period of time elapses (I think about 15 days or so) you own it and can do what you want with his cool junk.
Let us do a time line so you can schedule when the new good tenant can move in. Bad tenant misses rent on 1st, on 8th you serve 72 hour notice to pay rent, on 12th you file FED papers at county courthouse, on 20th you go to court for first appearance and get stipulated judgment. You negotiated with tenant a move out date one week later, the 26th at midnight, early on the 27th you pay Sheriff to give tenant 72 hour notice to move out, 1st of month you request Sheriff evict tenant, on the 2nd you get your property restored to you (about 30 days)
What if tenant comes back after Sheriff has left, easy the old tenant is now trespassing and you simply call the local police for enforcement. The eviction is on record and the local police will arrest him if necessary. You need to study the calendar to make your plans. For example if a 72hr notice ends on a Friday, the courthouse is closed on weekends, you must wait until Monday to file the FED. You just inadvertently gave a 5 day notice when you wanted a 3 day notice. Same thing on filing the FED, the clerk normally will set a date eight days later unless it falls on a weekend in which case it is 11 days later. Talk to the Sheriff office ahead of time and ask what days they do evictions, they may not do evictions on Fridays or Mondays. Same thing with holidays, figure them into your countdown.
Dealing with the tenant during this process need not be stressful, the tenant will probably still tell you he plans to pay rent on a certain day. You should keep smiling as if you believe him, but hand him the 72 hour notice anyway saying that if he pays the rent there will no further action. But as a landlord/business you must forge ahead to make your rental business earn its daily rent. You should know that you are not required to move ahead at the pace Ive outlined, you can file the FED or ask for eviction much later if you think it is in your best scheduling interest. There are some pitfalls, for instance you must wait the required times and use the prescribed forms and notices, if not and your tenant fights, your case will be thrown out and you will have to start over. Another little gem tenants can pull is to not show up for the first appearance, the Judge will grant you a default judgment. This really is what you want because now you go right to the sheriff (same day) to give the last 72 hour notice before he boots them out. This sounds great and happens a lot of the time saving you more than a week, but wait theres more. The tenant can call the court clerk, or see the Judge later that day or even the next day claiming they overslept or missed the bus or any of a hundred stories and convince the Judge to set aside the default. The clerk would then reschedule the first appearance in a day or two wasting your time again. This was just a nutshell of how it works, you can easily do it all yourself, or you may want to hire a service to evict your tenant and get your house back. There is no requirement for the owner to take part in any of the steps required. John 2010