Notice To Tenant Of Payment Required To Avoid Eviction: Fill & Download for Free

Evict them and send them each a “Thank You” card.Taking over a property with tenants in place can be difficult if you are required to respect the length of their fixed term lease. You will probably want to get into both units at the same time to do whatever repairs or upgrades you have in mind, you may want to raise the rent, and of course you will want tenants who meet your requirements. Fortunately for you, both tenants did you a big favor as you can now order them to vacate instead of waiting anywhere from 90 days to two years, and you can work on both units at the same time.Your tenants knew that rent was due, and if by some chance they believed that new ownership meant that they’d get to live for free (not impossible; I had a guy who thought that living in his apartment for several years meant that he was now the legal owner), that’s on them. This is actually an excellent lesson to learn if you are new to this business, because it is a business, and this means that you must evict tenants who do not pay. When you have your rental agreements drawn up you may want to specify a grace period or a schedule of late fees, but you should never delay past that. If you allow late payments until the 3rd, you should issue a notice to vacate (or a notice to pay or vacate) on the 4th. If you’ve made no stipulations for late payment, you issue the notice on the 2nd.This might sound unnecessarily harsh, but evictions take time. The fees to file in court are generally negligible, but your lost income won’t be. You can of course bill them for the unpaid rent and sue them in order to collect, but you lose out on rent during the process while you still need to cover the cost of ownership. The only way to minimize the cost to you is to act immediately, because evicting a tenant for nonpayment can easily take up to two months. Some people would urge you to negotiate or give your tenants an opportunity to pay, and that is an excellent idea as long as you negotiate after you’ve issued the notice.Most states allow you to issue a 3 day notice immediately, telling tenants to pay or leave within three days. If they pay then that ends the proceedings, and there will be no negative consequences to them. You cannot file the paperwork with the court to evict a tenant until the three days are up, but once you do the tenants will receive an eviction notice with a court date. If you accept any payment it will end the process, which is why you should never accept partial payment as you’d then need to issue another notice to vacate and start all over again.It’s a given that the tenants will be evicted unless they can show proof of payment, and being formally evicted will go on their record and make it impossible for them to rent again, so people are usually eager to avoid this. This is another reason not to hesitate, even if you want to negotiate, as you can withdraw your petition to evict if they move out voluntarily and pay in full – just do not stop the process until the keys have been returned, an inspection of the premises conducted, and the money has been received.Evicting tenants can be intimidating, but the courts who handle these disputes are designed to allow both parties to represent themselves. The process is less formal and technical, and if you show up and tell the clerk what you need, she will help you get started. I recommend delivering a brief account of the process at the same time as the notice to vacate, explaining to your tenants how it will be in their best interest to comply. You may want to offer not to sue for the unpaid rent if they comply, but make it clear that suing for eviction or to get a judgment for money owed won’t be a big deal to you.Your tenants will most likely pay or move out, as most prefer to avoid eviction, so if you do want to gain possession as soon as possible you should see if your state allows you to issue an unconditional notice to vacate. This is the ideal solution when you want the tenants to move regardless, and fortunately one that my state allows. If you are happy to let the current tenants stay you can give them the choice between paying and vacating, whether you are legally obligated to do so or not. If they pay the rent you should take care to tell them that late payments will not be accepted in the future, because in some jurisdictions accepting late payments repeatedly will obligate you to do so in the future.Whatever you consider an ideal outcome, you should issue a notice to vacate (or pay) today. There is no downside to this course of action, and no reason for you to feel bad. Your tenants tried to take advantage of you being a new landlord by attempting to steal free housing from you, but they knew when their rent was due and chose not to pay or contact you.

In CA you cannot evict a tenant for non-payment of rent during the emergency order. However this does not mean they don’t have to pay rent, they are still required to pay rent and have 6 months (longer in some counties) after the end of the emergency order to pay any back rent they owe.I would suggest you research the CA executive order on this (and any county specific orders / actions), then politely provide a notice to your tenant regarding what the order says. Unfortunately there are many renters out there who are taking the order as “we don’t have to pay rent” and that is NOT what it is. In short the order is No evictions for non-payment at this time, any back rent will need to be paid.When I say politely, take the tact of “I understand people are facing hardships due to COVID and may have loss of income or unplanned necessary expenses that could impact the ability to pay rent. In an effort to avoid confusion regarding the state executive order I want to remind everyone rent payments must be made and any back rent that is owed will be required to be paid after the emergency order is lifted. (literally copy the wording from the government is a good way to do this).”If your tenants are truly facing lost income (cut hours etc…) then you may also like to note to them that you are willing to, during the time of the emergency declaration, take partial rent payments. you could even offer to not assess late fees if they pay a minimum of 50% of the rent. Taking partial rent helps you get cash flow coming in that is better than nothing relative to your bills.The purpose of this is NOT to beat on your tenants, it is two fold. 1) offer a way that may get you some payments by accepting partial payments and waiving late fees during the emergency and 2) making sure the tenants are actually aware that they will owe the rent.I am actually shocked how many people who can afford to pay their rent (still have a job etc..) simply have decided we don’t have to pay rent now and even assume they will never have to pay that back rent.

You proceed with the eviction as you normally would, because losing your business won’t solve systemic problems like poverty and homelessness, but you take an hour to look up state and charitable resources in your area, and you hand a list of those to her along with the notice to vacate.You already know that you have to evict your tenant, because if she is refusing to pay rent you would need to pay it for her if you let her stay. You already know what most people tend to forget, and that is the fact that it costs a lot of money to provide rental homes to people. You had to buy or pay to build the place, you pay property taxes, insurance, maintenance costs, and likely a mortgage. Even if you paid cash for your properties, you are in the hole until you’ve earned back everything you spent. Even if you’re debt free, you still need to pay the costs of ownership, and you’re paying those whether your tenant pays their rent on not. People think a landlord “only” loses income when the rent isn’t paid, but the reality is that we’re both losing income and having to pay out of pocket to cover the bills on that property. The bottom line is that if your tenant isn’t paying rent, you’re paying it for them. And that’s not acceptable, is it?You are hemorrhaging money every day that you let her stay, and it’s only delaying the inevitable. Had your tenant been experiencing a temporary hardship, you could perhaps have hoped that she’d pay next month, but that won’t happen with a woman who is refusing to pay rent. If she really does need all her money to care for her kids, she will only take advantage once she’s realized that you feel bad for her, because she has to. The filing fee is usually negligible, but the average associated costs of evicting a tenant add up to $3,500. The longer you wait to start the process, the longer it will be before you get a paying tenant to take her place. Remember, eviction courts don’t give you credit for the time you gave her to get caught up. The process takes time, and the clock doesn’t start ticking until you serve her with a notice to vacate.Depending on your state and her payment history, you might be able to serve her with an unconditional notice to vacate, as opposed to one giving her the choice between paying and leaving. If this is an option for you, it’s one I’d suggest you take advantage of. It’s highly unlikely that she’ll pay in the next three or five days (depending on the notice required in your state), but you really don’t want her to. If she is that desperate, she might come up with one payment, but it’s overwhelmingly likely that she’ll stop paying again next month, and this will start all over again. Giving her the opportunity to avoid eviction by paying now could also give her ideas about persuading you to accept partial payment, and you don’t ever want to mess with that. In almost every state, accepting any payment – even $1 – after you serve a notice to vacate or file for eviction due to nonpayment is the legal equivalent of withdrawing your case. If she pays you half to avoid eviction with the promise the rest is to come, you need to start over again when she doesn’t follow through.Even in my jurisdiction, one where evictions are relatively pain free for landlords, I would need to serve this tenant a written notice to vacate within the next five days. If she refused to leave, I would then be able to file an eviction suit with the court on the sixth day, and I might get a hearing two weeks later (in other states you can wait a month or more). Your tenant will be entitled to live in the property during that time, and though they will of course still be required to pay rent for however long they stay, you can’t collect without dismissing your suit. Once she has been evicted you can deduct what she owes from the security deposit, and if that doesn’t cover everything you take her back to court, but getting paid will take a long time. The good news is that your tenant will be ordered to leave by the judge, but she will get at least another 24 hours to move out. If she still isn’t leaving you will have to get the marshals or deputies to drag her out, so you have a long way to go before you get possession back. Don’t delay.Ideally you wouldn’t have to evict, but if your tenant’s only alternative to staying until she’s dragged out by law enforcement, she is less likely to respond to the usual incentives. As much as I hate rewarding bad behavior, I will sometimes offer tenants I need to evict a chance to get their deposit back or avoid a lawsuit if they agree to leave. Being formally evicted would disqualify your tenant from renting another home, and a lawsuit for the money she owes would destroy her future credit, so you should start by explaining that it is in her best interest to move out. If that doesn’t work, and threats of lawsuits don’t affect her, you can offer to return some of her deposit to her. She won’t get a penny if you have to evict her, so make it clear that she can leave voluntarily with $500 (as an example), or she can be dragged out two weeks later with nothing but the promise of having her wages garnished for a decade. Hopefully she’ll agree if you can present her with some options other than homelessness.You should call your local department of social services and ask about resources for mothers and children, as well as any local charities. This is obviously something she should be doing for herself, but hopelessness often shuts people down. Something like this research might just be too much for a person who has been stunned into inactivity by stress, and it will allow you to go above and beyond your duties and obligations as a landlord. I have evicted tenants with young kids, but never without offering them information about where they can go. It might be a shelter, and it might mean temporary foster care for the kids, and while that is regrettable, it is not your fault. You and your tenant have a business relationship governed by a legally binding contract, and that contract requires her to return possession to you if she doesn’t pay rent. It might not be her fault either, but it definitely isn’t yours.We need living wages, public housing, and a social safety net in this country, because that’s the only way to prevent a family like the one you described from ending up on the streets or in a shelter. If you want to help, you should vote for politicians who favor these measures, and you should donate money and time to organizations that help people like them. Some readers will condemn me for advising you to evict, but unless they are willing to send you a check for the money she owes you and her future rents, those people are hypocrites.