How Can I Evict a Tenant Legally?

Published by julia | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Miscellaneous, Real Estate, Shout Outs

When a home will not sell on the market, many home owners choose to rent or lease out the home to a tenant. With a lease, there are legal rights that both the renter and the owner have. Many people jump into renting a home without any knowledge of the legal processes surrounding that choice.

If a tenant does not pay their monthly rent, there is a legal process that must take place in order to evict those tenants from the home. The process takes time and patience, but in the end, the tenant will be out and the For Rent sign back on the lawn.

The first step is to serve the tenant with a Notice of Termination. If the lease is a month to month lease, the tenant can be given as little as 30 days to prepare for a move. After the 30 days, the lease will be null and void and the tenant will have no rights to stay on the property. When serving a 30 Day Notice or Notice of Termination, there are legal reasons that are applicable. These reasons will vary from state to state so the owner of the property will need to cite a legal reason for lease termination.

There are three types of notices. These are the Pay Rent or Quit, Cure or Quit and Unconditional Quit. The Pay Rent notice gives the tenant the ability to pay the rent within a given amount of time or leave the property. The Cure notice gives the tenant a set amount of time to fix the lease infraction that they have committed or leave the property. The Unconditional notice gives the tenant no leniency and tells them the time they have to leave the property.

After this notice has been given, if the tenant does not reply or accept the terms, the owner of the property will need to visit the court. The court will write an order for the tenant to vacate. This order will need to be served legally. This does not mean the owner can shove the form under the door. There are agencies that will serve the tenant with papers and those are the agencies that will need to serve the order to the tenant.

If the tenant does not respond, the court will award the eviction case to the owner, in most cases, and the police will serve a final notice to the tenant before locking them out of the home. The process can take a substantial amount of time and money, so working with the tenant is the best choice in most cases.