horrible day in court

[Ed McIver]

I had a horrible day in renters court today. I will spare you most of the details. Last September the building got bed bugs, I made some stupid mistakes. And the tenant lied a lot. The tenant has not paid rent since October. The judge did not evict her. But did end the lease as of October.

So now I have a person with an expired lease. Who is storing items in my building whom I can not evict. What am I supposed to do. I am firing my attorney tomorrow.

Any help is welcome.

[Tim J.]

In no particular order:

1. Read the relevant landlord tenant laws for the state and municipality your property is in
2. Hire a lawyer
3. screen tenants well and have very strong/bulletpoof leases
4. offer cash for keys/ask tenant what they want.  In the long run you will prevail, but it can be an expensive and frustrating process and the timeline may be really long.
5 Consider renting in a state that has better laws - for example someone mentioned they get tenants evicted easily but I think that person was from SC.