Should I purse eviction? (section 8)

[Carlos Garcia]

I could use some advice on whether to pursue an eviction or not. Here's the situation:

- Small house out of state 
- Section 8 tenant, not a great tenant. Not very responsive and hard to reach even to schedule repairs
- Rent was $750, all paid by Section 8
- PM does not have any one local so they also manage it from out of state (major source of headaches)
- We are concurrently trying to sell the house on roof stock.com because it’s more trouble than it's worth
- Last September tenant signed a new lease with a $75 increase in rent. It took several months but finally in November the HA approved a voucher increase to $804, leaving $21/mo to be the responsibility of the tenant. So far the tenant has not paid the amount at all

So now PM says she is behind by 5 months on this $21/mo, plus late fees for a total of $262. I suggested we could offer that if she pays December and January (i.e. $42) before the end of January we’ll consider her current. With the expectation that moving forward she will honor the lease agreement and pay her portion ($21) every month. To this the PM responded they never take partial payments because it muddles the letter and sets a bad precedent. So a couple of weeks ago we sent a notice of non-payment.

Yesterday the PM contacted me and said tenant has been unresponsive about this. So he's asking if I want to move forward with the eviction process, which will require $750 retainer for the attorney.

My priority right now is to sell the property. So I'm trying to figure out whether to do the eviction right now or not? In terms of putting the property for sale, is it worse to have a delinquent tenant even if the amount is small or to have no tenant (or a tenant that is getting evicted).

Thank you, any insight or advice highly appreciated.

[Lynnette E.]

Have you notified the Section 8 coordinator that the tenant has not paid their share?  That may get the tenants attention.

Personally I do not think that a buyer wants to buy a house with a tenant in non-compliance with section 8.  Why would a new buyer want to take on an eviction, unless there is a great discount on the property.