Tenant Eviction in Virginia

[Aj Parikh]

I have a tenant through the housing voucher program and they have not paid the October 2020 rent. The housing organization has paid the rent for the Nov, Dec and Jan. Tenant has stopped responding to texts and calls saying she doesn't have a phone and she has been responding through someone else's email. We went to inspect the property in December and it was trashed and there was substance abuse as well. The tenant was not at the property so we posted a violation notice on her door to fix it in 3 weeks and that I won't be extending my lease after 1/31/2021 which is also the last day of her lease. I went there with my property manager earlier this week to see if they cleaned the apartment but instead she came out yelling that we cannot enter her apartment. We couldn't even have a conversation because she kept screaming and yelling and how we entered her home without notice. I get a feeling she won't leave the place without an eviction from court. Any suggestions on how I should approach this? 

[Patti Robertson]

@Aj Parikh - I had a very similar situation happen and successfully evicted my SEC 8 tenant last month, although it wasn't easy. When you say "trashed the property", what does this mean? In my base, my tenant kept bringing home free trash and collecting it around the house, claiming she was going to use it or sell it. We gave notice and it wasn't cured, so I called the city and reported a zoning violation, knowing that I risked getting a fine that could result in a lien on the property if it didn't get paid. Because of the pandemic, and because this tenant was SEC 8 and would lose her voucher if I evicted, I just preferred to have the City issuing violations notices about the tenant's behavior, rather than them coming just from me. I schedule an interior inspection and found the house full of junk too. We added this to the notice and scheduled an interior reinspection for 30 days following. Eventually the tenant did come into compliance with the city on the exterior, although by then the Housing Authority issued a termination notice of her voucher. Her appeal deadline was the same day as my interior reinspection, which was on a Monday. The week before the inspection I reminded the tenant of our inspection day. The night before the inspection the tenant called to say they were quarantining for COVID exposure. I told her that was OK with me, that I would mask and glove up, and was willing to risk it. That morning she called me at 9am to ask if she could move the inspection from 11am to 1pm. I told her no, that I did not have flexibility in my schedule that day. She agreed to see me in two hours. When I showed up the dog barked, but no one answered. I knew the dog and was OK entering, so I put my key in and started turning. The door flew open and a woman who was not my tenant, but I know had been living there for almost a year, stormed our SCREAMING at me that I did not have permission to enter, blah, blah, blah. She grabbed my keys from the door and hurled them across the yard. THEN, she started a fake cough and started running at me, telling me she was COVID positive and I needed to run away. (Don't worry - it was a lie.) I was done then, and we ordered an eviction, for failure to adhere to city code and violating her contract with HUD, which terminated her housing voucher and her lease. The eviction got ordered and the police did verify we were evicting for non-financial reasons, and emptied the house of all living occupants.

Make your violation about non-financial lease violations.  Leave the financial out of the equation.  It can be done.

Oh - and the tenant got legal aid involved, and it was the best thing that could have happened for us.  We follow the law and are fair, and this tenant was a habitual liar.  The legal aid attorney made her follow through with her promises of removing her items by a certain date, cleaning up her trash, etc.  It wasn't easy, and took days of our attorneys volleying back and forth, but she is out and I have a sweet SEC 8 tenant getting ready to move in.

Good luck getting yours into compliance or out!  Be fair but firm!