Five-Day Notice To Pay Or Quit: Fill & Download for Free

We don’t; in fact we usually couldn’t do that even if we wanted to, as most states require us to serve a notice to vacate before we can even proceed with a formal eviction.That notice you receive directly from the landlord is not an eviction notice. Depending on where you live it might be called something like a notice to “cure or quit”, or just to “quit”, and this is the landlord telling you what you must do to avoid having a legal case filed against you. A notice to vacate is the same as a notice to quit, and this one means that you must move out (plus empty and clean the space and return the keys) within a certain number of days, usually three or five, or you will be formally evicted. A notice to “cure or quit” gives you the additional option to pay what you owe – or fix whatever problem has led to the notice – within those days, to avoid being evicted.Some landlords do actually ask tenants to move, before they even issue their own written notices, but there’s a very good reason why a lot of us don’t. If we’ve reached a point where we’d even contemplate eviction, it means we need to get rid of those people. We could ask, but we’ll have absolutely no way of knowing whether the tenant is actually going to be gone by whatever time they agreed to. If they comply, all is well, but if they don’t, we’re right back where we started. If my tenant hadn’t paid rent on April 1st (under normal non-pandemic circumstances), I could serve them with a five day notice to vacate anytime after midnight on the 2nd. If they didn’t leave by the 6th, I could then file them paperwork with the court to have them evicted. It varies by state and municipality, but in my case they’d be served with the actual eviction notice on the following business day and given a court date within a week or so – though this can take up to two months elsewhere. Typically those tenants would be physically removed by the marshals before the 20th, and unless I eventually get paid for those days through a lawsuit, I’ll have lost 2/3 of a month’s rent.If instead I had simply asked my tenants to leave within five days, their promise to do so would be meaningless in the eyes of the law. Once I determined that they had broken their promise, I’d have to start from scratch by delivering that written notice to vacate and give them an additional five days to comply. That would mean missing out on an additional five days rent, which would be hundreds of dollars in my cheapest unit. Since my goal is to have the evicted tenants removed by the twentieth so I’ll have ten days to clean, paint, and perform repairs in order to move in someone else on the 1st, those five extra days could potentially turn into an extra 25 days, since my leases start on the 1st or 15th. Even if you think these are minor issues, remember that all it takes for a landlord to avoid wasting this time is to serve a written notice immediately.Whether you’re asking about the actual filing in court or the landlord’s own notice, the answer is the same: We don’t ask because a simple verbal agreement isn’t binding in this case, which makes it way too easy for scammers to extend the time they’ll get to live for free or continue trashing a place.

Landlords don’t send courtesy reminders because our tenants know exactly when their rent is due.Landlords operate the way we do because some people are looking for ways to scam us. You might have no intention of doing that, but we have to treat everyone the same to avoid accusations of discrimination, so you will all be subject to the same precautions. Sending notices and requests for payment would serve only one purpose, and that would be to provide tenants with an excuse not to pay. For those tenants who want to avoid paying for as long as possible, a customary curtesy reminder would enable them to claim that they hadn’t paid because they hadn’t received their reminder. It might sound like a minor problem, but it’s also one that is entirely unnecessary and avoidable.I am not wasting a stamp and the time it takes to change the date and name on a standard letter only to send tenants a reminder that the 1st of the next month will predictably be coming after the end of the current one. If I’m not willing to do that, I am certainly not driving to the post office and paying for 44 certified letters – and when it comes to tenants, any mail that isn’t certified might as well never have been sent.Having tenants who always pay on time would absolutely be preferable to evictions, but tenants who don’t pay rent on time aren’t doing it because they didn’t know it was due. How do I know this? It’s simple, really, because when I was inexperienced I would call or visit tenants who hadn’t paid that rent was due, and not a single person was prepared to pay me at that time. They hadn’t paid because they didn’t have the money, though some tried to say that they’d since spent it because they didn’t realize they needed to keep that money set aside. That was an incredibly lame excuse, and one that would be even more common if they could blame it on a missing letter.That’s why we don’t send out reminders, but fortunately this decision doesn’t mean that we had to conduct avoidable evictions. Even if someone had truly forgotten that rent was due this month just like it was last month and the month before that, the first step in the eviction process is a notice. If this is the first time that tenant failed to pay on time, and if they’re otherwise a desirable tenant, I will issue a notice to pay or quit. That notice will be hand-delivered and posted on their door on the morning of the 2nd, and it informs tenants that they have five days to either pay in full plus late fees or vacate the property.If they simply forgot, they will rush to the office with a cashiers check or money order (the only payment I accept for late rent), and I won’t have to evict them. If I issued an unconditional notice to vacate instead, it’s because I’d rather evict than keep dealing with them.

You will have received a notice to vacate (or “quit”) rather than an eviction notice, as that cannot be issued until the time specified in the first notice has elapsed. The actual eviction notice will follow in three or five days unless you do as requested, and this will have very serious consequences for you.If you move out after receiving a notice to vacate it will be a private matter between your landlord and yourself, but if she has to file an eviction suit with the court to compel you to leave, it will be a matter for the public record. A simple online check, conducted by all reputable landlords, will reveal that you were evicted, and no one will rent to you again. You will also forfeit your security deposit, and it’s likely that your landlord will sue to collect on the rent owed, late fees, and her expenses related to the eviction. All of this can be avoided if you comply with the notice issued by your landlord.Depending on state laws and your landlord’s motivation, you will have received either an unconditional notice to vacate (or quit) or a notice to vacate or pay. Many states require the landlord to give you the option to pay in full before the time – 3 or 5 days – is up, unless you have been late with the rent in the past, but others allow us to issue the unconditional notice at our discretion. If your notice states that you have three days to “pay or quit”, “pay or vacate”, etc. then you have the option of paying everything you owe plus any late fees within 72 hours of the notice being delivered. This will stop the eviction process before it truly gets underway, and you cannot be evicted for this particular late payment. Your landlord could still report the late payment to credit agencies (if she reports), and if you have another late payment in the future your landlord would then be allowed to issue an unconditional notice to vacate.If your notice simply tells you to vacate or quit then you will have 72 hours to move out. If you and your belongings aren’t gone when the notice expires, with you acknowledging that you have vacated the property, your landlord will then file for eviction with the relevant court in your jurisdiction. You will then receive the actual eviction notice listing a time and date for your hearing. You will be allowed to remain in the home until then, though you will be required to pay rent for that time, once the eviction is ordered. If you were my tenant you’d receive the eviction notice on or around the fifth of the month, and the hearing would typically be scheduled for two to three weeks after that.Evictions for nonpayments are simple, and you will be evicted. The judge or magistrate will order you to vacate within 24 hours, and I will arrange to have the marshals show up at the end of that period to compel you to leave, if necessary. Any belongings left behind will either be forfeited or put in storage at your expense, and anytime you apply for an apartment or any number of other services, the provider will see that you were evicted.It sounds like you believe that there’s something wrong with being told to vacate when you’re one day late, but this is legal in almost every state. The lease is a legally binding contract that you chose to sign, and you knew that rent was due on a specific date.