Dealing with evictions

[Mauricio Quintana]

Hi Everyone,

I'm curious to get feedback from other investors who have had to deal with evictions of someone you did not put in the house to begin with.  I have a flip I'm looking at that currently has a tenant in there who will need to be evicted.  The seller wants to sell "sight unseen".  On paper I have vetted the numbers, they all make sense.  However, I have heard that evictions can be long and time-consuming.  I'm new to this so I don't know how big or not a big deal an eviction is.  If this were your deal, would you offer less if the house comes with a tenant that needs to be removed?  If so, how much less do you offer?  Would you stay away from the deal altogether?  I'd love different perspectives on this. Especially from those who have experience with the scenario.

[Jennifer T.]

As others have stated, it is highly state/area specific as to how long or how easy/hard it is to do an eviction. I'll repeat also that you need to consider if it is a month-to-month tenant or how much time is left on their lease.  On month-to-month, I assume you'll need to give them a 30-Day Notice to Vacate.  But if there is more time than that left on their lease, you can't necessarily make them leave just because you'd be the new owner.  They would have to agree to it, which is typically done by offering them cash for keys.  However, if they haven't paid their rent after you own it, then you would follow those eviction procedures.

I just closed on two duplexes around the end of June.  They need substantial reno.  There are tenants in 3 out of the 4 units paying substantially below market rent.  I hoped for the best, but assumed I might have to evict all of them and did include those costs into my rehab numbers.  I gave all the tenants a 30-Day Notice to Vacate on the day after closing (they are all month-to-month).  I also included an intro letter that their security deposits had been turned over to me, along with a reminder that security could not be used for last month's rent.  It also had verbiage for the things I could do to help them with their move-out.  For example, with July's rent paid in full, I'd return any pro-rated portion if they moved out before the end of July.  I promised them a quick turnaround with their security deposit, assuming no additional damage from when I'd been there for the inspection.

But none of that mattered.  July 1st came around, which is when two of the tenant's have their rent due, and neither one paid.  We posted 5 Day Pay or Quit notices on July 3rd.  Still no payment and no one moved out.  Filed for the evictions on the first business day we were legally allowed to.  And court date for both of those is next Monday (July 29th).  We'll win and they'll need to be out by noon the next day.  If they're not, then it can take another 1-2 weeks to schedule a sheriff's visit.  That's about the anatomy of what an eviction looks like where I live though your mileage, especially on timelines, could vary a good bit.