bad tenant, eviction, appeal, what do i do?

[Marie Skaggs]

OK so we bought our 1st rental property...  spent about 10 months of hard work and sweat to completely gut it and put it back into great shape on our own.  Got our tenant and she had a good background check, a job, previous landlord reference and 1st, last month and security deposit ready to go!  All is great... until it was time to make the next rent payment.  Luckily we only had a 6 month rental agreement. But every month we had to file for eviction and possession but we got the rent.  on our last month to get the rent, our tenant files a late appeal to stop the eviction.  she has lied on all her forms for this appeal.  (lied about rent amount, lied about having a job, lied about us(the landlord) not addressing her complaint of sewage in basement and much more)  We have always responded to her complaints of sewage within a couple of hours. and usually had them resolved the next day, except for this last complaint.  We had to hire a plumbing company to completely excavate all underground sewage pipes and traps because of a PVC pipe that was shoved down the cleanout in the yard which backed up everything in the basement! This costs us over $9000. Of course there is no way to prove who did this. The past 2 days my husband and I have spent all our time trying to put a motion together to stop her appeal.  Tomorrow is the big day for us to file our motion!  And her lease ends tomorrow 7/31/17 at 8pm.  But she told us she will not be leaving tomorrow.  I hope we can get her out.

There is one small problem... her brother has just rented the place next door.  I have a bad feeling that they will do damage to our house if we evict her.  Does anyone have any advise for us?

[Chris K.]

@Marie Skaggs

I would say that --- in balance --- Pennsylvania law is fair to landlords. So you shouldn't necessarily get discouraged. You just need to protect yourself better and learn how to become a better landlord. First rentals are never easy. 

For sewage in the basement, the general standard is the "implied warranty of habitability." Your lawyer can give you more advice on what that standard means. 

If you decide to go with full litigation, make sure you have all your records straighten out. Organize all communications with this tenant, bank records, etc. But I would say I'm generally an advocate for settlement or cash-for-keys approach. And this is coming from someone that can handle every eviction myself if I really wanted to.  

In terms of the sibling situation, it all depends. I had to deal with a similar situation in the past and the sibling was totally fine with me getting rid of the other tenant. I do like the advice of @Marcia Maynard that you should watch this property like a hawk --- that's especially true if you are in a situation where this rental poses a big financial burden on you. 

She also gave good advice on human nature: you should always give the opposing party a "way out." Often times when you back the other side into a corner with no way, the other side can start acting crazy. Now when I was a lawyer for national and community banks, I could be fairly aggressive. This is because these banks really didn't care about these kinds of loss. Even a six figure loss doesn't register a blimp with a bank that has billions or even trillions in assets. That's different when you are just a normal investor. 

On a related note, don't think about teaching this tenant a "lesson." You should make investment decisions and not emotional ones. Once you are a billionaire like Peter Thiel, you can start financing lawsuits against companies like Gawker for fun and giggles. But unless you can comfortably dump five figures (even six figures) in legal fees, you shouldn't really think about lawsuits as a way to teach a lesson. 

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney. What I wrote above does not create an attorney/client relationship between us. I wrote the above for informational purposes. Do not rely on it as legal advice. Always consult with your attorney before you rely on the above information.