Renters Wont Leave

**Crazy_Gypsy** · 04-29-2009, 05:39 PM

The renters was have in our house now have been there only 3 months. There a pain to get our rent from. They have been late several times but gave them slack we never charged them late fees or anything. They told us april 1st that they wont be there for long etc. We told them that if there not goign to pay for may then on the 30th be out. Throughout that month we kept getting myspace and yahoo im messages saying they dont have a place to go but they cant pay rent. We went 2 weeks ago and told them again that they cant live there for free that if there not going to pay by the 30th to be out we will have to get other renters in there to pay for the house. Well a big fight broke out on different things and so we then wrote a evition noticed and gave it to them. There claiming now they never got it. Well we called the sheriff station and they said to go to the court house and get the court to sign a eviction notice if they dont get out then the deputies will make them leave. Well i messaged them on yahho telling them that if there not going to pay rent we do have another family who wants in the home and there refusing to get out they claim they get 30 days and they dont have to pay rent and that we cant legally kick them out without the 30 day notice but yet they refuse to pay?

**aardvarc** · 04-29-2009, 07:30 PM

The very first line of your posting, which is supposed to tell us WHAT STATE you are in, is requested for a reason. The laws on eviction are different in every state, and without knowing yours, no one can offer any guidance.

The sheriff's office, however, GAVE you the steps you need to take: you need to file for an eviction and get a court order. That order gives them some amount of time to get out (depending on your STATE), and if they're still there after that the sheriff's office will step in. Your tenant seems to think the time is 30 days - which is pretty typical, but again, depends on your state. Evicting WITHOUT going through the process (like just changing the locks or dumping their stuff and moving someone else in) results in them taking YOU to court, and probably winning (in which case you get to pay THEM, and likely MUCH more than the amount they owe in rent).

**Crazy_Gypsy** · 05-02-2009, 09:27 PM

I wrote oklahoma in the title it must of got taken out or i was thinking it and never actually wrote it. Sorry about that.

However we did go and get a eviction notice at the court house and its for 5 days they said after that come back and we can file for small claims court. It seems to be a real pain but they refuse to leave until the 20th of this month. They told us they would be out by then if we let them stay. Mom said she didnt mind them staying for however long they like if they are paying.

Right now there living there for free. Refusing to pay and when the 8th comes mom gets penalized for late rent.

**aardvarc** · 05-02-2009, 11:12 PM

If you have an order from the court, they don't get the OPTION of refusing to leave after the court designed "out date" - you call the sheriff's office to ENFORCE the court's order.

THEN you take them to small claims for amounts of rent owed, the expenses for the court filings, etc. Unfortunately, the sad truth of being a landlord is that being merciful and understanding of tenant problems and cutting them slack often ends up hitting the landlord right in the wallet (one reason why things like deposits and payment of first AND last month's rent up front are so common - to protect the landlords who have tenants like these). It might feel over the top to start court proceedings when a tenant is late once, or twice, but NOT nipping such problems in the bud ASAP often results in dragging things (and non-payment of rent) out for longer and longer periods of time.