The first stage in the eviction process is to serve the tenant with what is called a Notice of Termination form.
Tenants who are on a month to month lease can be evicted with a 30 days or 60 days written notice. In some states 60 days is required while in others only 30 days is required. You need to check your locality. The form you use is called either a 30 Day Notice or a 60 Day Notice.
A 30 Day Notice can not be served on a tenant under some circumstances.
Subsidized housing programs often limit what you can evict a tenant for. They usually have forms where you have to list the reason for the eviction.
Some cities have rent controls in place that require “just cause” in order to evict and the landlord’s 30 Day Notice must specifically state the reason for which he is terminating tenancy.
Evictions that are based on discrimination or are retaliatory are illegal.
There are three kinds of Notice of Termination forms that are most commonly used based on the reason for which you are evicting a tenant.
The notice called Pay Rent Or Quit is sent to a resident who has not paid rent. This notice commands the tenant to pay his rent or move. The resident is given anywhere from 3 days to 30 days to pay the rent depending on your local laws.
Cure or Quit notices: This notice is given to tenants whove violated one of the conditions you listed in your rental contract. It tells your tenant to cure the violation in a limited number of days (determined by state law) and vacate the premises, or be subject to an eviction action.
There is a notice called a Notice to Quit or Unconditional Quit which just tells the resident to move without giving them a chance to fix anything or to pay anything. This form basically just commands the tenant to pack his things up and get out by a certain date. I recommend you never use this notice. In the few court cases that a tenant has won against a property owner, it was because the owner served the tenant with this notice. You should only use this notice if the resident has severely damaged your rental unit or has committed some illegal act like robbery or murder. Never be lazy and use this form for all of your evictions.
Now keep in mind that after serving one of these notices, a tenant is not automatically evicted if he refuses to leave.
You need to start the eviction process.
You need to file the proper forms with your local court and have the tenant correctly served with a summons and complaint. The form you use for the complaint can be provided by the court and when you fill it out, you must not put on it anything but unpaid rent or actual property damages. You can NOT put late charges or other fees on this form. If you do, it is likely that your complaint will be denied by the court.
The biggest mistakes property owners make is in how they serve the tenant. You can not just put it in the mail or shove it under the door. You need to go through a court approved serving agency in most cities. Each state has its own rules for what is considered the correct legal serving of documents and forms. If you do not know the law in your area, you should contact a local attorney’s office.
By law the court will set a trial date. Your resident will be given a certain amount of days to file his own answer to your complaint.
What usually happens is that when the tenant gets the legal summons and complaint, it scares him into vacating your rental unit because he knows he violated some condition of the lease agreement.
Often a resident will want to settle with you out of court. That’s fine if you both come to an agreement. Just don’t forget to dismiss your eviction action with the court.
If your tenant doesnt file an answer in a timely manner, the eviction action proceeds to court without the tenant.
This is called an uncontested eviction. The court requires you to prove your case, but the tenant isnt there to respond to or deny your charges. Typically, you can easily prevail in this situation, as long as you have good documentation.
4. If the tenant files an answer and appears at court, you each will be given a turn to make your case before the court makes the final ruling.
The court calls this a contested eviction. If you have all your paperwork and proof in order and professionally present yourself and the facts, you generally will win. But if you have acted illegally to evict the tenant you will not.
5. Once you win the eviction lawsuit, you then give the judgment to the local police.
The local police will contact the tenant and tell them to move immediately by a certain date of face a lock out. A lock out is when the police come to your rental unit and physically remove the tenant and all her belongings from your rental. Make sure you have a locksmith meet the police at your rental and change the locks as soon as you regain legal possession of your rental.
You should have a property management company or a lawyer deal with the evicting of your tenant. The reason is that it is a complex process with forms and letters to file and serve that must be done exactly by the book. Any mistake along the way in this eviction process will delay the eviction and you’ll have to start all over again even if it is clear that the tenant has violated a condition in the lease agreement.
There are many eviction and collection law firms that specialize exclusively in legally evicting tenants.
Eviction and collection attorneys will handle everything for you. You just turn the eviction process over to them and they do the rest. They do all the filings with the court, the correct serving of your tenant with the appropriate legal notices, and they even call the police and schedule a date for the lock out to take place. They even have their own collections department where they collect on past due rent and have the power to negatively impact a tenants credit report until he does pay you.