Evicting a tenant that stopped allowing showings during home sale

[Tomas Satas]

Greetings fellow landlords.

Has anybody successfully evicted a tenant that completely stopped allowing showings?

The building is for sale and it’s a very long story.

To make it extremely short...

We have cooperated 1000% and have even bent over backwards with this tenant’s showings “rules.”

She would only allow week day showings, 2 hour window, shoes off, and on and on.

We complied because we did not want to start a war.

So all of a sudden the other day we notified her of a showing 24 hours in advance and she said we cannot show her floor until she moves out.

She still has a year left on her lease because the genius previous owner was signing 2 year leases with her.

Now our only option is eviction.

Has anybody evicted a tenant for breach of lease agreement due to denying showing requests?

Thanks so much. :)

[Joe Splitrock]

@Tomas Satas you are looking at this 100% from only your point of view. First of all, the lease clause is worded for showing to perspective tenants, which would be after the current tenant gave notice. It doesn't say showings to buyers, but rather specifically calls out applicants. That could be an issue if you went to court. Tenant has rights to quiet enjoyment.

Look at it from her perspective, parading a bunch of buyers through is of no benefit to your tenant. Only down side for her. People don't take off shoes, leave lights on, open her closets and generally just invade her personal space. She get's nothing out of it. She literally just went through the same disruption with the previous owner, now you are selling less than a year later? Hardly what a tenant signs up for.

My point is, stop looking at things as how it benefits only you. Look at it from her perspective and you will see she is justifiably bothered. Find a way to work with her, which means some benefit to her such as a rent concession for each showing. Offer her $20 per showing and $100 credit when a buyer is found. Let's say there is ten showings, that will cost you $300 total! Why even consider eviction when there are better (cheaper) solutions like this that are win/win.

One thing that will help is stop parading all the buyers through the property. Take a video and let buyers know they can inspect after the property is under contract. Any real investor will understand that showings alienate tenants. My guess is most of the "lookers" are just newbie investors who won't buy anyways.