Tenets Not Out by end of Lease

[Jessica Swanson]

I live in Texas. This past year has been my second year managing a long term rental, first time dealing with awful tenets. Their lease is up end of day today and I was just at the house- there is no way all their stuff is going to be moved out by EOD. What rights do I have as the owner/landlord to move this along if they are in fact not out by EOD? We have contractors that are supposed to start in 3 days so my family can move into the house in a month. 

[Chris Grenzig]

@Jessica Swanson considering you say they are awful tenants it could be one of two scenarios. (Also, caveat to make sure this is all legal in your state as each is different)

One - they are going to move out and leave a ton of stuff behind. Just have your contractor rent a dumpster and pay for the cost to trash it and dump it and count it against their deposit

Two - holdover tenant, which is when they stay past their lease end date. Usually, this is an eviction process. In Florida, you would serve them a 3-day notice, and usually, the lease has a provision in it where you can charge them double rent or something similar for a holdover tenant. If so, follow the lease and post the charges to their account or something. Engage with an eviction attorney to make sure you are doing everything legally and exactly how you should be. Often times the threat of an eviction which will show up on their record is enough to get them to leave. Good chance they don't pay the owed amount, but you can probably also count it against their deposit and then send the balance to collections if they refuse to pay. 

Maybe before doing that, if you're comfortable, you can try seeing when they intend on moving out. Even if they say they'll be out within a few days, I still highly recommend posting the 3-day notice anyway. That way they know you are serious, and if they don't end up moving out there's no further delay on filing to start an eviction proceeding. 

I learned the hard way and from others, this a legal contract and if they are not upholding their end you need to treat it as such. There is a time and place to be lenient and forgiving on things within a lease, when someone is not respecting something big like this, you have to unfortunately be firm.