Inherited tenant filed a complaint on me...

[Cody Benedict]

Hey everyone, this is my first post and mostly looking for some reassurance and to see if anyone else has dealt with a similar situation. 

Background: I purchased an off market 4-unit in Wisconsin and inherited 3 tenants. One of the tenants has been there for about 9 years with the last written lease ending in Oct of 2012 (with the owner before the person I bought it for). The previous owner kept her there on a verbal month-to-month lease.

I checked with a local attorney and was told the laws required me to give a 28 day notice to terminate tenancy which I hand delivered (Nov 1st) and told them that we would not be renewing their lease at the end of the month so they would have to move out so that the unit could be remodeled. She initialed the notice and I took a photo with a time stamp as well. Basically she had been calling and texting me to ask questions about the notice and why she was being "evicted". Multiple times I have explained that this is not an eviction and isn't something that has been filed with the court system. 

Now today I received a phone call and email from a Consumer Protection Investigator-Mediation Unit letting me know she filed a complaint and saying that I was evicting her... and I have 10 days to get back to the investigator explaining my side with supporting documents. 

I am currently waiting to hear back from the attorney I was speaking with at the beginning of the month but being a new landlord this has me quite stressed out. 

Thanks in advance for any insights/motivation. 

[Marcus Auerbach]

You have the law on your side, so you can don't have to worry about that. If she is not leaving next month then you'll have to evict her. It wil take time and money, but like I said the law is on your side.

The issue is of course that someone who has been living somewhere for 9 years finds out that within a matter of 4 weeks she is going to be homeless. That is a shock. Looks like you are in a smaller town, so probably not that many options, especially this time of the year. Plus rents are probably higher. So, predictibly she is panicing and fights back with everything she has, has hopeless as it might be.

So what could you have done differently? More time, maybe 2 months, would have probably helped. Even tough in my experience most people will not take real action until a few weeks before they need to be gone. But it helps emotionally. Time of the year is also a factor; holiday season and mid winter is always tricky. I always try to be as collaborative and empathetic as I can possibly be while still protecting my buinsess interests: sometimes a conversation goes a long way to soften the blow. When I am involved as an agent (we work with a lot of house hackers) I always try to get at least informal word to the tenants asap. so they can start to emotionally prepare and the Notice does not hit them out of nowhere. They expect it.

What can you do now? Stay the course!You have to follow through! 

Backpaddeling now is dangerous, because it imlies that you are a pushover and the move out date can be changed, just by changing your mind. You always want these things to be seperated from you personally, institutionalize these decisions as much as possible. Blame it at your "business partner", the business plan, whatever - as long as it is not just " what you say". That makes people angry and resent you.