Month-to-month eviction question

[Carole G.]

I rent out a home in Mesa Az to my son and then rent out the other bedrooms.  One of the tenants, who is month to month, has not paid May rent (or June), and my son also caught him stealing something from my son today and filed a police report.  My son gave him a 5-day notice last Tuesday.  Do I have to go to eviction court, or can I just ask the sheriff to come put his stuff on the curb?

[Dan Schwartz]

It's actually a very simple process here in Maricopa County.

Give the notice and make sure you have a way of proving notice was delivered. If the problem isn't cured by the end of the notice, continue.

Find out which Justice Court has jurisdiction over the property address.

Download the form for an eviction action on the justice court website.

Follow the instructions and file at the window in the courthouse at 7th Ave and Jackson. The fee is $58 or so. They will assign a court date at that time.

Then you need to send a process server (shouldn't cost more than $50) to serve the defendant.

At your court date, the renter needs to prove that he/she has paid the rent. That's pretty much the only defense in our county. You paid, or you didn't.

Note that if either party doesn't show up, they automatically lose.

All of the cases handled by lawyers will generally be handled before the self-represented ones. Your time before the judge will be only a few minutes, once it's your turn.

If judgement is entered in your favor, the tenant needs to leave. You have to wait five days before you can request a writ of restitution, which is what authorizes you to hire the sheriff (through the court, and at a cost of about $115) to force the tenant out.

Double check all of this if you do it yourself. This is simply my recollection of the process late on a Saturday night. I'm not a lawyer and am not offering legal advice here.

You can also hire a lawyer for this. While the process is pretty clear, it does use a lot of your personal time. A lawyer who is regularly at the Justice Court could probably handle it at a decent rate. I've never used a lawyer, but probably will if I ever need to evict again.

Good luck.