I need some help from some more experienced landlords. I have a rental home in Alabama. The lease says the tenant must provide me with a key and must allow for physical inspections of the residence with advanced notice.
I have been unable to get a key from him for two months and he is not allowing my agent in to do the inspection. I have a seven day cure clause in the lease.
My plans are to serve him with a seven day notice to provide me with a key and allow my agent in for an inspection. My tenant has previously told me there is a plumbing leak and I am trying to get in to fix it.
I want to make sure these two reasons (key and inspection) are sufficient reasons and cause for eviction in court. If the seven days pass, I will begin the eviction process unless anyone has any suggestions/thoughts???
Thanks
Theoretically, any violation of the lease should be ample reason for eviction (assuming that is what your lease says). However, theory and reality are often quite different. I would give the tenant the 7 day notice as you discussed and unless he responds immediately, you should call an eviction lawyer in your area and discuss this matter with him. The lawyer should tell you on the phone whether this is sufficient grounds to evict the tenant. If the lawyer thinks you can evict, then do so. If not, then you need another reason to get them out. Do they have a long lease or are they on month to month? Are they current on the rent and late fees? Are they violating any other lease provisions? Is there illegal activity going on there?
When a tenant is acting like that, something is going wrong! I suspect that they have trashed the place and don’t want you to see what they’ve done. It is also possible that there are more people living there than are authorized on the lease. It is certainly possible that they are conducting illegal activities there. At any rate, there is a problem.
Good Luck,
Mike
My question is why don’t you have a key? You do OWN the building right?
Part of this depends on the laws in the state that you’re in. In Massachusetts, tenants aren’t required to give the landlord a key. I have one tenant that’s afraid for her security and changed the locks on me without giving me a key. She’s agreed that she’ll pay for the door if I ever have to break it down for any reason. Otherwise she’s a good tenant and I don’t push the issue. People are funny about things like that, the previous first floor tenants never used to even lock their door and whenever I came over to fix something, they just told me to come on in, the doors were unlocked.
Anyway, if you need to get into the unit and the tenant won’t let you, you can always go to court and get a court order to let you in in short notice. I’m told it’s a simple form to fill out and you can get in within a day or two of filing it as it’s typically granted. Then if you can’t get in with that, they’re violating a court order which has harsher penalties. The laws in your state may be different though.