Some thoughts on Eviction

by Steven Tucker

Email: stucker@homeriver.com Mobile phone: 480-291-6863

When you invest in a property it is easy to think that getting a tenant, property maintenance and property management will not take up much time or effort. Reality is your investment property may become a headache for you, one bad tenant is all it takes. Many owners end up selling on the low after evicting a tenant that leaves a disaster behind.

At this time, when many of us are worried about a very possible recession, investing in property and caring for it makes total sense. If well managed, residential property is a reliable passive income.

This week I want to address a very common question, when should I go for an eviction process?

Only when all other resources have failed.

It is ugly business and no one wants to go through it.

To get an eviction started the tenant had to violate the rental agreement. This gives you the first 2 lessons to learn, to avoid problems first you need a responsible tenant and second you need a clear and efficient rental agreement.

So, say eviction is your only option at this point, where do you start?

First thing is to issue a pay or quit notification for the tenant in case they haven’t paid rent. It is worth it to make your intentions clear to the tenant, they may consider avoiding the eviction process since it will reflect badly on their credit.

Eviction process can take weeks or months depending on each case, it will cost you the missing rent for that time, legal fees starting at $1,500 USD and there may be damages that could be left behind by the evicted tenant.

Managing your property investments is time consuming and a lot of work because you have many responsibilities landlord. I honestly feel like the biggest responsibility is that you are dealing with a person or a whole family.

Therefore you can’t leave the emotional part out of an eviction.

You will feel like the bad guy, the person who is not understanding to your fellow man struggles. Are you ready for this?

Reality is that the best way to avoid eviction of a tenant is to choose a good renter from the beginning and have a clear rent agreement in place. A professional approach to this has a lot of advantages of course, when a tenant is dealing with a company and not an individual, they will know from the start that this is not one person doing another a favor, it is clearly business.

Now if you are renting a place remember at all times, it is a business transaction and you need to address it accordingly.

Sorry for the tough love in this week’s doc.

Until next time.

Steven