Evicting a tenant can be a stressful, tedious process if you aren’t sure of the proper steps to take. There are all kinds of situations that can lead to an eviction but the most common one is missed rent payments.
If a rent check is returned to you NSF, meaning that there are non-sufficient funds in the tenant’s bank account, things can go one of two ways. They can go well (the tenant pays you for the missed rent and NSF charge in a timely manner) or not so well (the tenant misses this payment entirely and possibly more rent payments). If things go in the latter direction it is very important to act. The first step is to send them a default notice. If they don’t respond to that by paying you the missed rent, the second step is to start the eviction process.
This is where some landlords make the mistake of using their heart and not their head. You hear all the time that “tenants have all the rights” and “it can take forever to evict a tenant”. More often than not though, a lengthy eviction is a direct result of a landlord not starting the process soon enough. They listen to excuses and promises to pay, all the while paying rental expenses out of their own pocket while these promises continue to be broken. Suddenly they find that weeks or months have passed and they still haven’t taken the steps to formally evict the problem tenant.
Starting the eviction process sooner rather than later is in your own best interest because owning a rental property is a business. If the tenant comes through and pays you and you feel positive about having them stay on, you can cancel the eviction. If they don’t come through, you haven’t spent so much time and out of pocket expense waiting for a resolution, the eviction process is already in motion.
A final note for the kind hearted, and I’ll be honest I am one, is that ultimately bad things can happen to good people. If your tenant has had a good payment history and has hit a bump in the road, hopefully he’ll be able to catch up and set things right. If not you can look at this as a positive learning experience for you to learn the eviction process. Hopefully it will be an experience that you won’t have to repeat again.
