3 Day Notice in Toledo, Ohio

[Patrick Sergott]

I have my interpretation of the law in Ohio but am seeking input on when you can file a 3 day notice in Ohio. Here is my situation. 

Tenant's rent for February is $700. Rent was due on February 4th. Tenant has paid $100 toward the $700 thus owing $600 plus late fees. When am I able to file the 3 day notice? My property manager and I are not in agreement. 

Would love to hear your thoughts.

[Andrew Fidler]

@Patrick Sergott - consult your attorney in the matter is the legal answer (cause I'm licensed and all).

However speaking as a guy who presents about 30 of these a month here in Toledo...I can provide some experience.

The three day notice is applicable for rent due, not late fees or deposit and has nothing to do with the date of being due.

You absolutely can present these at-will through out the month, I disagree with @Andrew R Lee's short answer, but he may be referring to a specific case I'm not envisioning. 

Let's just do calendar days for ease of discussion - day 1 tenant owes you money. Day 5 you present 3-day notice (expires THREE business days after posting)...if you expire that and file in court you are headed to eviction, most of my threats to evict get paid or put on payment plans (so the 3-day notice is an important document not to be delayed).

IF on day 10 you accept $100 as in the example above you have nullified your 3-day posted on the 5th...totally agreeing with Andrew there. HOWEVER, you just post the new 3-day when negotiations break down. (We only accept money on a payment plan with a healthy percent down and a written payment plan...if they miss the payment plan, or if I'm particularly suspicious of them not paying, I will post the 3 day early to expire on the day the payment is due).

So to conclude you can present 3-days as many times as you wish (in my experience, consult your attorney before you declare Andrew R Fidler the Ohio Real Estate Broker is practicing law)  - each time you accept money you negate the prior efforts and start over. This is the fun of being a good property manager...my job is to get CASH for the owner, not get personal or insulted by the tenant.

Specific example from Monday of this week...tenant owes my client $2k and actually didn't show up in court for the eviction so they now have a full judgement against them and they are being kicked out. Tenant calls the office Monday and offers $1600 on their $2400 balance which includes $400 of eviction charge. The office confirmed with the owner that 66% of the balance due was a good gamble and we took the money. We are also totally ready to re-post the 3-day on the tenant in March if they fail to pay per the agreement and evict them all over again. (Yes I have multiple tenants who just seem to need to be evicted three times a year to stay focused, as long as they are paying the charges then I call that a sound business plan)

I have zero preconceived decisions about eviction court, it's an amazing place where you never know if a tenant will bring thousands in cash to pay their balance or nothing and simply ask to move out or not even show up with everything in between! 

As a licensed property manager I make the decision the owner and I agree upon...if they declare we aren't accepting money then we evict but I typically council that our goal is to collect 12 months of rent for the year and the efforts my company goes through to collect them is paid for by the tenant if they remain so let them fight the system as many times as needed in order to fall into line. Many times once people realize the legit property manager isn't going to play the games their grandmother was willing to they settle down quite successfully.

Hope this helps!