How to Evict a Tenant for Property Damage

Rate: (1 Ratings)

Sometimes you rent to a person who seems like an excellent tenant, but then you realize they are destroying your property. Many property owners will wait for the lease to end and then not renew the lease, but in some cases, the homeowner must react immediately. Even if they pay their rent on time, you can still have them evicted.

Flag Article

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Step1

Document any damage. Keep a camera with you whenever you visit your properties. If anything is broken or seriously out of order, take a photograph and put it in the tenant’s folder. Make sure the date and extent of the problem is noted.

Step2

Give the tenant a warning to fix problems they are causing or to move out. If they continue causing damage, you need to ask them to move out.

Step3

If you have a month-to-month lease, you can give them a 30-day written notice for just about any cause. For any other breach of the lease, such as repeated property damage, you may give them10 day’s written notice to move. (This time line will vary in different states).

Step4

If the tenant refuses to move, and chances are they will not move, you may file an eviction lawsuit against the tenant. During the eviction trial, the judge will listen to both sides. At this time, the property owner needs to submit solid evidence of the damage and frequency of the damage. If the judge determines that an eviction is warranted, they will give the tenant a move date as well as determine how much money is owed to the property owner. This may include court costs.

Step5

Should the judge find that there is no reason to evict the tenant, the judge will cancel the eviction and possibly have the property owner pay the court costs of the tenant. This is why you must have unmitigated proof that the tenant is causing enough damage to evict them immediately.

Step6

At this point, you can continue to monitor the damages on the house, and try again should they get worse, or you get more proof. Otherwise, the property owner should wait until the terms of the lease ends.