Tenant not paying rent, is it possible to sell

[Michelle Phimmasone]

We are in Menifee, CA and have moved into a new home since 2019 and so have been renting out our previous home. The current tenants have been on a m2m lease since June 2020. We were charging under-market rent because they asked for a deal. However as of fall 2020 they started having various excuses of not being able to pay full rent, among some other problems like we were getting several HOA fines for them not putting trash away, lawn not maintained, they had us do several repairs. All of a sudden our finances were depleting. We told them in December 2020 that we were probably going to sell the house in Spring 2021. As of January, they completely stopped paying rent and communicating. They responded just once, were very angry and unapologetic, stating they had Covid, and also that they were advised by friends to not pay rent in case we sold the house. After that they never responded again, nor answered any text or call. My husband had been having to deal with everything along with having to work his full-time job so he decided a few weeks ago to get a property manager for the house.

The property manager has dropped off lease paperwork and rules, etc for the tenants and visited the house a couple of times and has told us that they will not communicate or respond to him either. He’s said there’s absolutely nothing we can do but wait till the CA covid eviction moratorium is lifted. We weren’t sure if we could serve the tenants a 15-day notice to pay or quit (our property manager never suggested it, I don’t know why).  If they did pay the 25%, would that make it harder to evict them later on? Are we legally able to offer them cash for keys to see if that’ll get them to respond/move out?

is it possible to sell the house with tenants in it, I know the Menifee market is very competitive right now. Should we get in touch with a realtor and investor to figure out our options? Or an eviction lawyer? Sorry for all the questions, just a month ago we were newbies and didn’t even realize that you couldn’t evict anyone right now because of Covid. We are having to learn real fast. Thanks for any advice!

[Judy Parker]

Cease all communication with them, hire a real estate attorney and file on them immediately (you should have filed on them the first month they didn't pay rent).  If tenant uses Covid as an excuse to avoid paying rent, there were procedures they were required to follow.

And don't waste your time/money trying cash for keys.  The Tenants owe you a lot of money. You shouldn't be paying them, THEY should be paying YOU.

Any sophisticated Buyer will NOT take possession of the property with a deadbeat tenant.  It will become Landlord's responsibility to evict the tenant, so you might as well proceed with eviction, now.