Jacksonville Rental Properties Solution?

[Brian Halstead]

Hello, everyone here's my situation hunting for a solution, I bought seven single-family properties in Jacksonville Florida in October 2016

(I live in Miami Florida) and inherited a few troubled tenants, I have tried to work with them but I think it's now time to evict.

I gave them all new one year leases since the Seller said they were great tenants, that was my first mistake. 

I am a DIY-er so I started the eviction process but have a few questions.

Is US mail and email an acceptable form tenants notification?

As anyone here ever evicted anyone in Jacksonville Duval County and can give me some tips.

I will also love to hear from Landlords in the Duval County area of Jacksonville.

Warm Regard, to all.

[Perez Leanne]

Hi Brian. I am attorney practicing in Florida and now living in Jacksonville (was living in South FL for the past 7 years). I manage my parents' rental properties (10+) and have done several evictions for them. For evictions in Duval county, you can file the case online or you can do it through an attorney. It is always best to provide any notification to tenants by posting it on the property door. It makes things a whole lot quicker. Mail does get lost and I have found that when I have sent mail certified in Jacksonville, the post office is not very good at tracking where the mailing is. This has happened to me several times when I was mailing back security deposit claim/refund correspondence to tenants.

Once the 3-day notice deadline has expired and the tenant still has not paid the overdue rent or has not vacated the property, you need to file the eviction case asap. Then get them served immediately thereafter (I can provide you the name of the process server I use). If the tenant does not respond to the complaint within the given deadline, you then proceed to move the eviction along by obtaining first a default against the tenant and then getting the Writ of Possession (this is the document that the court enters that you then provide to the sheriff so they can turn possession of the property over to you). If the tenant happens to respond to the lawsuit (many times they respond in order to buy themselves time and delay the case), a hearing will have to be scheduled before the judge. The benefits of using an attorney for the eviction process is that the attorney can obtain a hearing date quickly directly from the judge's assistant in order to proceed the case along. Also, it has been my experience that when the tenant sees that an attorney is involved instead of the landlord filing the case on their own, they are more likely to take things serious and either pay up the rent they owe or move out more quickly.

I am happy to answer any questions you may have about this process. Best of luck!