21st January 2009

Sooner Than They Think

posted in Care and Feeding of Tenants |

It never fails to amaze me how tenants behave when they’re about to get evicted. I haven’t had to file for one in a while but something I heard today completely reminded me about this behavior.

For some unknown reason, tenants seem to have the perception that it takes between 3 and 6 months before they will actually, physically get removed, by the sheriff, from the house they are supposed to be renting. I say “supposed” because they are actually “supposed” to pay rent to live there.

To illustrate the point: I’ve had family members call me, before the tenants are due to appear in court, to ask if we can “work things out.” In another case, I had a family member call and offer to pre-pay the rent a year in advance so I would stop the eviction. My answers was, “I wouldn’t stop the eviction if you paid two-years rent in advance.”   And the best was a minor-aged sibling of a tenant call to curse me out for filing for eviction before the tenant hadn’t paid rent for three months. What?!

Where do these people get the idea that it takes so long? Maybe they’re thinking of a foreclosure which does take 6-12 months sometimes.

My record for scoring an eviction order from the judge is 20 days. But then again, if I let  potential tenants know that fact, I’d probably have a 100% vacancy rate.

Or, they could just be responsible and pay the rent…and on time.

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  1. 1 On January 25th, 2009, andy said:

    With the over burden court system 20 days is amazing, but not completely unheard of. I too once summons a tenant to court within 14 days of a 5 day notice of eviction, and the judge gave the tenant 7 days to get out. However, I watched other cases before mine where every delay tactic one can think of was applied. In one case the tenant claimed that the eviction procedure was the result of a retaliation for reporting a problem to the health department, and it was only after an activist type judge posed a few questions and made a few threats did the tenant come off that accusation as a defense; the judge told the person that he would grant a continuance to review the eviction further but only if the rent was paid in full. The second time I went to court it took me 8 weeks to get a hearing set; good reason to have first and last months rent and deposit on lease signing. I was duped twice, not bad for 17 years in this business. Today, I do work with some of my tenants in part because of the high vacancy rate in some areas of our business. I have 3 of 56 tenants paying rent in 2 payments per month; I suspect I will have more of that. They are good people, and responsible, and bi-monthly payments may be the waive of the future until this
    recesssion is over.

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