Lease Option Tenant filing for Bankruptcy

[Andrea Weule]

We have a property in Crown Point that was put into a 3 year lease with option to purchase in June of 2017. The tenant put down $3,000 option and paid $1700/month for the rent. They were also responsible for all utilities, renters insurance, maintenance and repairs. I continued to pay HOA, insurance and taxes to avoid any major issues or liens on the property.

The tenant was hit or miss on rent and was always wanting us to fix minor issues with the house.  We did agree to clean the sewer line, but held strong on minor maintenance issues with the home.  The tenant refused to transfer the utilities for several months so I kept adding that up to additional back rent.  The tenant finally paid the rent via an online credit card payment to catch up.  As it turns out it was a "friends" credit card and so they filed a fraud claim and the money was then pulled from our accounts.  

At that point we went to eviction.  As soon as we were approved for eviction they tenants filed for bankruptcy.  They filed it incorrectly and the courts dismissed it.   An Order of Execution of the eviction was entered shortly later...but the tenants refiled for Bankruptcy later in the day. We are now have a bankruptcy attorney working on it along with our traditional RE attorney that does our evictions.  

We're 6 months into this and I'd love to hear what others have to say.  We're open to any tricks to move this along