My newest property is a four Plex with inherited tenants. One of them was a relative of the former owner and has been particularly ornery. Her rent is about half market rates and I am tired of dealing with her. I am particularly upset because this is the one where the rent was changed after I was under contract to buy the property. She has approximately 18 months left on a lease but she is unable to pay every month. I posted the required three day notice on the ninth this month and she has not made any effort to communicate with me since. Tomorrow morning I can start the evection process, but if I accept rent from her I lose the ability to evict.
I don’t care even a little bit about the rent, I just want her out. My worry is that after I start the process she will direct deposit into my account at the bank and I will lose the ability to effect. Has anyone run into this before?
Last year I started allowing tenants to deposit the rent directly in a holding account at the bank. This has been great for both the tenants and myself, as they can come in on the day it is due and deposit it and there is no waiting on the mail. I don’t have to worry about checks bouncing or collecting rent in person or my more difficult tenants telling me that they mailed it and they don’t know why I don’t have it. Up until this incident I hadn’t seen a downside at all, but now I am worried that the court will see her depositing in my account as payment of the rent and I will lose my eviction privileges.
You didn't say what state and city your in as eviction laws very state to state. Most leases have a penalty for exceeding a 3 day or 5 day grace period like for example $35 on the 4th day plus $10 for every day late. What does the lease say? She may be entitled to cure (Pay back costs) right up until 23 seconds before the judge speaks and it's legal provided she pays all her rent and your cost's and she can keep doing this over and over and over again!
She may be trying to get you to buy out her lease to get her to move? For example if her rent is $800 per month for 18 months she may be looking for a $7,500 dollar offer to leave her unit and terminate the lease! In fact she may have schemed to do this when she got her lease renewed, I am not saying your seller was complicate or actually knew what his relative intended to do, but it sure seams like this woman is looking to get paid to get out?
She does not need to direct deposit, all she may need to do is pay her lease payment, late fee’s and court cost’s and Walla she is back current again. But removing a way to pay may back fire against you in court as she could tell the judge "I had the money to give him 23 days ago and I could not pay it because he removed the ability to direct deposit!
Then keep in mind there are a lot of things protected by law: “Your honor he doesn’t like me because I’m purple” and he does not honor my: “Pink Polka dot religion” and your honor “I’m a girl” and this guy doesn’t like girls, and your honor “I’m from Germany and he’s Jewish”!
And your honor I work in adult entertainment and he’s a Rabi!
You get the gig, you just have to find out your rights as a landlord in that state and what her actual rights are?
How do her rights differ from month to month tenancy under the lease? How do your rights differ under her lease versus month to month?
You might be going at this the wrong way. If you really want her out, here’s a thought: In my area, I get calls all the time from people saying the reason they are moving is because the duplex, triplex, fourplex, etc. they lived at was sold and they’ve got an eviction notice stating the new landlord or their relatives want to move into the unit. Tough to verify their references because their landlord apparently skipped town or if I get them, do you think they’re going to tell the truth as to why they served it? I checked with my local landlord tenant board and they directed me to a form showing it’s a perfectly legal way to evict someone. No one seems to get evicted for any other reason anymore in my area. Not sure if it applies to your area, but apparently everyone’s doing it. Just sayin’…
The lease is a mess. She is an inherited tenant who was the granddaughter of the previous owner. She has 18 months left on a two-year lease that is about half market rate.
The lawyer said that I don’t have to refuse payment after The three day notice. I was worried because she said she put it in the night deposit box last night, which was technically just over 72 hours after after my notice but it was still on the third business day. Turns out she lied about that but she made a payment of about half the rent this morning by depositing it at my bank. I have already turned it over to the lawye. there are too many problems here for me to put up with.
There is always the option of closing the bank account until after the eviction. You’d have to first send her a notice that direct deposit is not longer acceptable.
I don’t think there is anywhere that you must accept a partial payment to stop an eviction. It’s payment in full plus all late fees and court costs or the landlord doesn’t have to accept it.
In Oregon, after 3 pay or quits, the tenant no longer has the option to cure and the eviction goes forward even if the tenant pays all. You might see if you have something like that locally.
But, again, you are paying a lawyer and I sure hope he knows the law for your area better than the rest of us on the internet who don’t even know where you re located.
I just got out of court. Thought I would post an update. The court did agree that I provided sufficient evidence that I notified the tenant that I was proceeding with eviction and she was not to continue paying me. In this case I refunded some pre-paid rent that she had paid and she immediately put it right back in my bank account. She also paid may rent sometime last week. I got a bit of a verbal chastising from the judge about my practice of allowing the tenant to pay at my bank, but he went ahead and allowed it.
So I still have herr rent money and she will have to find a new place. It’s unfortunate that it worked out this way, because she really seems like a nice girl, but she was trying to pull a fast one.
In that situation, I would start the eviction process anyway if she is behind. That usually makes tenants understand they have to pay on time and either they will become a tenant that always pays on time after that or they won’t pay and you get your eviction. If she isn’t destroying the property or violating any covenants of the lease that would be grounds for eviction, there isn’t much else you can do. But maybe at least you won’t have to chase her for the money each month if the eviction scares her into keeping up with the rent payments. The cost of the attorney to start the eviction is still worth it even if she ends up paying on time in the future. At least that’s been my experience.
I stopped allowing tenants to direct deposit a while ago. I switched to Cozy for rent collection. You can turn off the lease as soon as you start an eviction so they cannot pay anymore.