Little Rock, AR · Member since 2014 · 20 posts · 3 votes
Hi BPers - I inherited a tenant several years ago. He's currently on a month-to-month lease. Over the last year he has slowly slid to consistently being 2-3 months behind on his rent. His attempts to "get caught up" are not happening anymore. I started hinting a couple of months ago that I will need to take legal measures if he doesn't get caught up and back to consistent payments. Other than rent issues, he keeps the house very clean and maintains the property decently. If you were trying to remove this tenant from your property, would you:
Give 30 days notice that you're not renewing his lease next month and ask him to leave?
Or start the eviction process?
Monthly rent is $750, so I'm wondering if the costs/time/stress of eviction are worth pursuing if an option is to just tell him I need him out in 30 days. I was planning to renovate and update the property once he did decide to move out one day, so not renewing his lease would just be an opportunity to jump start that.
I normally advise my clients in Florida in this situation to:
1) give proper notice of non-renewal, and at the same time, 2) give notice to pay.
If tenant doesn't pay within the notice period, file eviction, and the non-renewal notice serves as a "back stop", if you will, in the eviction, in case you needed to amend the complaint to add that count to the action.
Check your local laws and see what will be the fast and easiest for you. In MD it would be Non-renewal because you can get a tenant out faster then non-payment. Good luck!