Investor · Mc Lean, VA · Member since 2015 · 6 posts · 0 votes
Hi. I have a tenant who had rented a small 1 bedroom condo in Fairfax, N. Virginia for about 2.5 years. He is a federal government employee in Washington DC (working for HUD). Early August, he was 1 to 2 months behind in his rent before he stopped replying my emails and phone calls. Soon after that, I surprisingly noticed he had already moved out of the condo, leaving behind all his trash, and without giving us any notice nor returning the keys. We intend to pursue legal means to recover the rent arrears, but have no idea how to proceed. We appreciate any suggestion and help we can get.
Unfortunately as landlords we have deal with such human trash. Keep the emotion out of this. Look at it as a business decision. Figure out how much you are owed and then how much the lawyer is going to cost. That will tell you if this is worth pursuing.
You have a clear case against the tenant, so if you are savvy, then you can file the forms with the court and have the paper served by a police office to the work location (since they have not left you a forwarding address). If the individual is there, then they are going to be embarrassed to be served court papers at work. Even if they are not, you meet your legal obligation, and the court might decide in your favor. Then you can go through a rent recovery service (e.g. http://www.rentrecoveryservice.com/) and send them 3 notices to pay up the court judgement. Which I am sure they will not. At which point you can have it reported to the credit bureaus.
Long process to not get any money, but at least you will have the satisfaction of screwing their credit. :-)
I am local to you. Feel free to PM me and I will be happy to talk.
I take it that you are managing the property and not using a property manager?
My first gut feeling, and that's all it is, not legal advice, is to change the locks. Take pictures of the unit before you clean up the evidence of his abandonment and trash. I'm not familiar with the tenant laws of Virginia. Address this with your lawyer, and you're going to have to talk to a lawyer.
The government is gonna shut down (unless Pope Frank worked some miracle) soon, so find out if he's still working for HUD while you can.
Unfortunately as landlords we have deal with such human trash. Keep the emotion out of this. Look at it as a business decision. Figure out how much you are owed and then how much the lawyer is going to cost. That will tell you if this is worth pursuing.
You have a clear case against the tenant, so if you are savvy, then you can file the forms with the court and have the paper served by a police office to the work location (since they have not left you a forwarding address). If the individual is there, then they are going to be embarrassed to be served court papers at work. Even if they are not, you meet your legal obligation, and the court might decide in your favor. Then you can go through a rent recovery service (e.g. http://www.rentrecoveryservice.com/) and send them 3 notices to pay up the court judgement. Which I am sure they will not. At which point you can have it reported to the credit bureaus.
Long process to not get any money, but at least you will have the satisfaction of screwing their credit. :-)
I am local to you. Feel free to PM me and I will be happy to talk.
Thanks for your suggestion. Yes, we're managing the condo ourselves. We live just 12 miles away. We just found out he's still working at HUD. Since we thought problems like this may happen from time to time to other landlords, we were hoping there is a standard procedure, like going to the local court to apply for some court order after presenting our evidence / documents (just like going to the court to apply for eviction notice and send it to the violating tenant). Since total rent in arrears is about ~$2000, not sure if it's worth paying lawyer's fee to solve this. Wondering if there are relevant websites / info that explain. Thanks
Just saw Upen Patel's advice. Thanks for the suggested course of action. Doesn't seem like it would cost much. Hope this could lead to something. I do have a few pictures of his trash.
File a small claims lawsuit for the money he owes you. It usually doesn't cost much to do that. Once you obtain a judgment, you have several ways to enforce it - including garnishing his wages since you know where he works. You could also turn the debt over to a collection company and report it to the credit bureaus like @Upen Patel suggested.
Timely article, Marie, exactly my case. We should have recognized the early signs, one of which was rental coming in later and later in the month. Actually we never rented to him directly, but to a 40~50 yo lady, who later dated him, and allowed him to move in. She moved back to LA soon after, telling us they broke up and he'd like to continue renting. We were shocked, but he seemed polite, and has been on time for 2 years.
After he repeatedly avoided us, I entered the condo without his security alarm code. The alarm went off and police came. This happened twice. Even the security staff had difficulty changing the code. We then spent quite a bit of money to get rid of his bulky trash.
Kyle, thanks for the small claims information. We'll plan our next course of action. I doubt if he cares about his credit score, since he already has a stable government job.
Timely article, Marie, exactly my case. We should have recognized the early signs, one of which was rental coming in later and later in the month. Actually we never rented to him directly, but to a 40~50 yo lady, who later dated him, and allowed him to move in. She moved back to LA soon after, telling us they had been dating and just broke up and he'd like to continue renting. We were shocked, but he seemed polite, and has been on time for 2 years.
After he repeatedly avoided us, I entered the condo without his security alarm code. The alarm went off and police came. This happened twice. Even the security staff had difficulty changing the code. We then spent quite a bit of money to get rid of his bulky trash.
Kyle, thanks for the small claims information. We'll plan our next course of action. I doubt if he cares about his credit score, since he already has a stable government job.
If he has abandoned the property you should file a Warrant in Debt as he is no longer in possession and rent is in arrears. Before you do, you might call him at work and explain what your plan is, and that you will serve papers on him at work. Sometimes this tactic will cause someone to pay up because they don't want the sheriff showing up at their place of employment.
Did I understand you to say that you did not rent to him? Without a strong lease naming him as the Lessee I think your chances of recovering damages are slim at best. You must demonstrate to the judge that he had a duty to pay, and if he is not the Lessee you won't get far.
Thanks for the suggestion of filing a Warrant in Debt. We'd look into it. I can email him about this, although I don't think he would reply.
No, I did rent to him, and he did sign the lease. It's just that we were reluctant and shocked at first because we didn't know a stranger had been living in our condo, and we felt like being forced to continue renting to him when we were abruptly told he would take over the lease.