Sacramento Section 8

[Zach Riegler]

We are acquiring a duplex in Sacramento and we have a tenant who is a section 8 tenant. Does anyone have any experience with giving a tenant 90-days notice to vacate? We are considering doing a cash for keys strategy. Does anyone have any experience doing this? Looking for the best way to go about this. 

[Kyle J.]

I assume the tenant is not currently within their lease period and they are month-to-month?  If they're month-to-month, then you can give them 90 days notice (and it is 90 days, not 60 days, for Section 8 in California).  If they're within their lease period, you can't just give them notice to vacate, but I assume you know that and they're not.

Personally, I wouldn't start out offering cash for keys to a Section 8 tenant.  I'd just give them their notice, and make sure you provide a copy of the notice to the Housing Authority too.  Whether or not they move in time is largely going to depend on them being able to find another suitable place and whether they're able to get their voucher transferred.  You offering to pay them money isn't likely to help with either of those things.

I have one Section 8 tenant and she told me it took her 6 months to find a place before I accepted her because the rental market was so competitive.  She turned out to be a great tenant for me and has been with me for a little over 3 years now but she wasn't planning to move until she found a place.  Fortunately, the landlord at her previous place was pretty flexible because he was getting out of the military and moving back into the house that she was living in, and he gave her plenty of notice in advance of his intentions so she had a lot of time to conduct her house search.