Moral dilemma on eviction

[Mary Jay]

Hi guys,

I did an eviction today on one of my properties and the judge ordered the tenant to leave my property by April 3rd. The tenant owes me 5K in rent.

Should I send this to a collection?

I am a Christian, the Bible says: "Forgive those who owe you" and I feel bad for the tenant, she does have 4 adult kids though who lived with her. (One adult daughter said she gave the money to the tenant for rent but the tenant still did not give me the money. May be she did though, and thats what have covered her half rent for February, but she still owe me the second half of February rent and the MArch rent)..

I feel so bad for her, she is not a bad person, I already did an eviction which is damaging, the collection will damage her credit even worse...

 But she owes me  5K and it is a lot of money. 

What would you do?

Would you send it to collection?

[Richard F.]

Aloha,

Decide if you are running a charity or a business, and operate as such. It just won't work trying to do both, and you are likely to end up with a Fair Housing complaint from someone that you choose NOT to help.I hope your eviction included the adult kids, or you may not be seeing a paying occupant any time soon. If you want to help them, sit down and negotiate a written agreement for repayment once they HAVE vacated, so as not to damage their credit further. And hold them to it. Also, you generally have to get the money judgment in order to go to collections.

Going forward, always get ALL adults of legal age on the Rental Agreement, with a "joint and several" clause so they are ALL responsible for 100% of the rent.