Tenant Owes Rent- What should I do?

[Sam Zawatsky]

So, I've got a rental property with tenants that I inherited. I noticed that they kept making more and more of a mess over time, and I have caught them lying to me about multiple things over the past 2 years. I gave them notice 3 months ago that I will no longer be renting to them, and they paid very late each month except for this last month. They kept telling me "sorry I'm gonna be late", and I didn't want to evict them with only 1 month left because I felt like they could be spiteful and do a lot of damage to the property. I do not have a security deposit from them unfortunately. So now they are supposed to be leaving in 2 days, and haven't paid rent for the last 5 weeks. They owe me $1300, and I feel like they are trying to get by and just leave without paying me the rent that they owe. I am considering my options on what to do, and I feel like I have the following options:

1.) Find out somehow where their new address is (not sure how to find this out affordably), and file a lawsuit against them in small claims court and hope they pay or eventually get their wages garnished.

2.) Allow them not to pay and just forget about it.

3.) perhaps something else that I haven't thought of.

Any thoughts?

[Tim Baldwin]

Unfortunately, this is a tactic used by scrupulous tenants who are not acting in good faith. Another unfortunate situation with a lot of these sorts of tenants is that they are "judgment proof", meaning, even if you were to sue them for damages, they do not make sufficient income or have sufficient assets to collect on your judgment. On top of that, you'll incur legal fees and costs to prosecute the case to get a judgment. Of course, you could file a small claims action yourself in Leon County and save yourself the legal fees. 

You could turn the matter over to a collection company (including law firms that do collections on contingency), but normally, they charge a very high percentage of what they recover, and you normally have to authorize them to settle for any amount the want to. Thus, if they charged 50% of what they collect, and they decide to settle for 50% of what they owe, you could recoup small percentage of what they owe you. 

Of course, if they don't vacate the premises by the date they are required, you should take the necessary step to terminate the tenancy, whether by a 3 Day Notice to Pay or if they are a holdover, by delivering demand to vacate with notice that they are a holdover and owe double rent per F.S. 83.58. Getting them out will at least help to stop the bleeding. Best wishes.