Evicting A Bad Tenant

by Joe Trometer
(Michigan, USA)

Evicting A Bad Tenant


How Much Stress Can A Landlord Tolerate?

The photo is the result of a neighbor's call about a Tenant passed-out on the sidewalk. I feel the neighbor should have called Emergency-911 but, this intoxicated behavior was not unusual.

To me, as the property manager, problematic renters cause me more stress than the rent money is worth!

How do I evict a Tenant that has paid on-time,

Every-Time,

For more than three years?

As a Landlord, an investment property owner,
collecting rent is priority one!

Cash flow on investment properties always looks good on paper!

There is no line-item on the real estate investor cash-flow sheets for dealing with Tenant problems!

Even though I paid my Tenant Service Company to research the renter's application, there was no history of Tenant behavior problems!

Such As:

• Public disturbance


• Public intoxication


• Complaints from other Tenants


• Complaints from the Neighbors


• Numerous Police visits


• Visits to my home at all hours


• Tenant asking for rides, money, medicine, etc.


• Trash in the yard


• Unauthorized occupants


• Loud music


• Indecent exposure

Just to name a few occurrences!

I did my best to calm each situation the renter created.

At first I offered helpful suggestions and reasoning to solve these uncomfortable situations.

Keep in mind, collecting the rent is priority one! If you're a Landlord like me, we depend on our rent cash-flow to keep our businesses running.

What Happened Was...

The more I gave, the more the renter took advantage!

I needed the rent money to make my mortgage payments, many Landlords can relate to that.
Then it came to that time,
when collecting the rent from this mischievous renter,
became quite stressful.

Enough Is Enough!

The Tenant Violation Notice...

In the event I decide to evict such a Tenant, I better have my paper work in order!

I began writing a Tenant Violation Notice for every incident of problematic behaviors in case I have to defend my reason for eviction in Court.

I found a Violation Notice has no effect on an intoxicated resident.

Having my Attorney serve the Tenant with Eviction Papers did get their attention. They were apologetic and asked in desperation not to be evicted, and I sympathized with them.

Legal Fees in excess of three-hundred dollars to be paid by the Tenant were my terms to give the Tenant a second chance to maintain their residency and, they paid the legal fees.

Additional Conditions:

In addition to the reimbursement of the Legal Fees, I re-wrote the lease to a
Month-To-Month Rental Agreement.

Eviction on a monthly rental agreement can be served with a thirty-day notice of "Not-To-Renew" their tenancy,
without reasons given!

Just the same, a resident can give the Landlord a thirty-day notice Not-To-Renew their monthly agreement without reasons given as well!

I use a Standardized Rental / Lease Agreement prepared by an Attorney in my State. It's a simple one page contract with fill in the blank entries on the front side of the page.
On the Back side of the agreement is a list of terms and conditions on basic rules of conduct.

I thought the standardized rental lease was straight forward for rental terms a Landlord and a Tenant could follow...

I Was Wrong!

I created an Addendum to Rental / Lease Agreement consisting of nine pages and eighteen line items of additional conditions and rules of conduct as follows:

• 1) Disturbing the peace


• 2) Yard boundaries


• 3) Police activity


• 4) Unauthorized occupants


• 5) Outside fires and barbeque grills


• 6) Garbage pick-up and yard trash


• 7) Personal belongings in the yard


• 8) Landlord business hours


• 9) Renter's Insurance


• 10) Appliances


• 11) Pest control and feeding the wildlife


• 12) Repairs and maintenance


• 13) Lost keys


• 14) Smoke Detectors and fire extinguishers


• 15) 6 Month inspections


• 16) Smoking policy


• 17) Termination and renewal of Rental / Lease Agreement


• 18) Terms for release of rental obligation

How Did I Come Up With The Above List?

Each condition above came from the history of the above mentioned,
and a few from other renting experiences that posed problems or expense to me as the Landlord.

I enjoy home remodeling and real estate investing on fixer-uppers.
Expanding my real estate investor strategy to include managing rental units, has been more challenging than any do-it-yourself construction project I've ever done!

Now with my revised renter's addendum and the eviction of problem causing renters, well, I'll keep you posted.

Joe Trometer

What do you think? To comment or start your own page, Follow the links below...