Serving a notice to vacate: What would you have done?

[Glenn Espinosa]

I bought a quad last month through VA financing. With accordance to VA financing I have to occupy one of the units within 60 days.

The four tenants are all pretty nice people:

Unit 1: Retired military recently divorced man who pays one time every month if not 1 week early. Has lived at the unit 2 years now

Unit 2: Elderly woman who has lived at the unit for 7 odd years and pays on time, does get sort of picky with the maintenance, however.

Unit 3: Older retired military gentleman who has lived in the unit for 25 years. Pays 2 weeks in advance every month.

Unit 4: Husband/Wife/8 yr old son. Wife is the daughter of the elderly lady downstairs. In the process of filing for bankruptcy. Genuinely nice people from my dealings with them the past 1 1/2 months. Paid 2 days late last month and only paid half of rent on the 3rd followed by the rest on the 10th as agreed upon. Rental history from previous owner shows that they pay their rent if not late a few days. They have lived at the unit for 2 years.

I decided to let go Unit 4 as I saw no reason to let any other tenant go. All tenants pay the same rent amount. I did offer a $500 incentive if anyone wanted to volunteer and leave, no one took it. So today I served the notice to vacate and now the mother is threatening leaving also. She thinks that I should have let Unit 3 go since he only stays at the apt half of the time and when asked if he wanted to volunteer and leave he replied that he was merely "too lazy."

I do see their point that it would be much easier for Unit 3 to leave as his financials make it much easier for him to find another place.

As I sit now I may be losing 2 tenants with this decision (not really too upset about this, I'd prefer not to live adjacent to someone who has it out for me...)

I'm thinking I made the right decision but just wanted anyone's thoughts on this.

Thanks,

-Glenn