Eviction advice needed in Phoenix, AZ

[Ivan Smith]

Hello, i have a tenant in Phoenix AZ area, that has been late in paying rent for last 2 years, due to me being out of state and schedule i finally decided to evict him. He would pay rent usually half around 15th and then the other half around 25th-30th of every month, so he was always a month behind. In August he switched to paying 50% to 75% of rent due and stopped communicating. its a month to month lease so i had to give 30 days. I sent certified mail mid september that was returned from the post office. i eventually flew drove down to the property in beginning of October to post eviction notice on garage and front door. i inspected the property that seemed half way abandoned. Thermostat was off the wall, laundry room filled up to 3ft with dirty clothes trash everywhere, bed frames dissasembled and no water. Water has been off since May according to the city and all plants dead. Food in fridge is from April this year and it basically looks like someone was half way through moving out and then something happened and so a bunch of stuff is still in house. specifically one room filled with about 10 burner phones, 3 tvs, personal clothes, mail, kids personal items and bunch of random stuff new with tags, etc etc. he also had pets which was against lease term. one of the rooms was used as a pet room completely destroying carpet and staining walls with urine etc. 

Today was a month since notice so i called local court and figured out paperwork to file. while looking through bank statements i realized that he has been zelling me random amounts for rent since august and i learned today that if he makes even a dollar payment it voids the eviction process because i "accepted partial payment" according to some regulations in arizona. I unenrolled Zelle so he cant zelle payments this month and going forward.

Question 1. Do i really have to restart the process of doing  a 30 day notice starting from the time he last made partial payment in october? 

2. Will i have to disclose these payments in court during the hearing or do i just say he is behind rent since august. 

3. Should i focus on just one thing in the Complaint? just say rent is not being paid, or should i include things like unauthorized pets and damaging property by not having water on since may and sprinkler system disconnected, damage inside property?....will i also have to furnish proof for those items complicating things?

4. Once judgment is granted can i just throw all his stuff in the trash or do i have to keep it for awhile? 

5. Whats the best way to go about evicting him? i feel like property is abandoned but concerned as there are a whole lot of things normal people would take with them. Even if summons is served at the address noone is there to sign it or receive it when a server tries to serve it. how does it work if server cant reach the defendant. Will court still proceed and grant eviction case in my favor?

Thanks for any advice

[Kevin Sobilo]

@Ivan Smith, I can't speak specifically to your state's eviction laws but I'll give a few general comments:

1. If you don't know your state's laws and especially if the eviction isn't cookie cutter you probably should hire a lawyer to deal with it. There are too many ways for things to go sideways. Evictions are something you can handle, but you need to have a good grasp of things before you start IMO.

2. I suspect in most states accepting a payment would nix and eviction. The reason is that it implies you and the tenant have agreed to some kind of payment plan.

However, the pay or quit eviction notice I use specifically states that partial payments are NOT accepted unless there is a WRITTEN agreement to do so. This should in theory avoid a random partial payment from stopping an eviction.

3. If you believed the place was abandoned that might have needed to be part of your filing with the court if you wanted to use that as a reason to grant possession as opposed to just nonpayment.

4. When you get the order of possession from the court, it will probably state a date or number of days the tenant has to leave. So, you probably cannot take immediate action. If the tenant still doesn't leave, you may need to use that court order to have a constable/sheriff forcibly evict them assuming they are still living there.

5. You MAY be able to ensure nobody is living there and avoid the need to use a constable/sheriff by having the municipality's code enforcement office post a notice saying the place is "uninhabitable". In my area water is required for habitability for sanitary reasons. So, that would mean as soon as the judge's date passes you know they aren't living there because they cannot legally inhabit the place anyways.

6. Check your state's laws about tenant possessions. In my state I'm required to hold the items for 10 days from the date I mail them a letter about their possessions. If I have no address for them, I send it to the rental property address because they may have mail forwarded. In my state if the tenant requests I would have to hold the items up to 30 days but then storage fees could kick in. So, check your state's laws as they likely differ somewhat. 

[Ivan Smith]

Great thanks for the detailed reply. Do you think it would be ok to post a new notice on garage and door stating that they have 30 days from 10/22 (date of their last partial payment) and just file court paperwork on November 23rd? There is noone there so i dont think it matters much to date new 30 day notice from today. Should i also email them or text to show the court or is pictures of notice posted on the garage sufficient? Thx

[Kevin Sobilo]

Quote from @Ivan Smith:

Great thanks for the detailed reply. Do you think it would be ok to post a new notice on garage and door stating that they have 30 days from 10/22 (date of their last partial payment) and just file court paperwork on November 23rd? There is noone there so i dont think it matters much to date new 30 day notice from today. Should i also email them or text to show the court or is pictures of notice posted on the garage sufficient? Thx

Some of those details are very state specific. Some states may require more notice or different notice. So, I can't comment on those details because you aren't operating in my state.

This is why you probably need a lawyer until you get experience with all the details for operating in that state. 

[Henry T.]

You need to read and understand the laws that are specific to your state. Read eviction process and requirements for granting. I would focus on abandonment. If you've sent notices, allowed the required time, no response, no activity, no water, no rent, garbage left, no sign of anyone.?. Go in and take possession, change the locks, but make sure you know the law first. Start reading some municipal code. I'm in Seattle and have no clue what they allow down there. It should be on line, look it up.

[Ivan Smith]

Got it thanks ill check it out, hopefully there is some clear guidelines on this.

[Dan H.]

https://www.amazon.com/California-Landlords-Law-Book-Respons...

$26 for the kindle edition could be some of the best money spent on your RE business.  

Good luck

[Adam Bartomeo]

From the info given, you  will NOT be able to evict this tenant. They paid the rent and you haven't given them an opportunity to fix the other issues.

You may want to reach out to more experienced investors to understand what having a rental is really like because what you described is fairly normal. 30% of our portfolio is late every month but your only concern is if they actually pay. As for the way that they are living, you should be doing routine inspections and then hold them accountable. It also sounds like you don't fully understand the laws.

[Kevin Sobilo]

Quote from @Adam Bartomeo:

From the info given, you  will NOT be able to evict this tenant. They paid the rent and you haven't given them an opportunity to fix the other issues.

You may want to reach out to more experienced investors to understand what having a rental is really like because what you described is fairly normal. 30% of our portfolio is late every month but your only concern is if they actually pay. As for the way that they are living, you should be doing routine inspections and then hold them accountable. It also sounds like you don't fully understand the laws.

I took his post to mean that originally the tenant was paying the full rent by making multiple payments late during the month, but then started to fall more behind by only paying a total of 50-75% of the rent each month. So, I believe they are delinquent on rent.

I agree with the rest. A lot for the poster to learn and improve upon.

[Adam Bartomeo]

Quote from @Kevin Sobilo:

Quote from @Adam Bartomeo:

From the info given, you  will NOT be able to evict this tenant. They paid the rent and you haven't given them an opportunity to fix the other issues.

You may want to reach out to more experienced investors to understand what having a rental is really like because what you described is fairly normal. 30% of our portfolio is late every month but your only concern is if they actually pay. As for the way that they are living, you should be doing routine inspections and then hold them accountable. It also sounds like you don't fully understand the laws.

I took his post to mean that originally the tenant was paying the full rent by making multiple payments late during the month, but then started to fall more behind by only paying a total of 50-75% of the rent each month. So, I believe they are delinquent on rent.

I agree with the rest. A lot for the poster to learn and improve upon.

You are probably right... Either way, he is accepting any rent and the courts will not evict them because they are behind. He will have to stop accepting rents and start the eviction process at that time. Depending on the state he will likely not have any sort of case at this time.

[Kevin Sobilo]

Quote from @Adam Bartomeo:

Quote from @Kevin Sobilo:

Quote from @Adam Bartomeo:

From the info given, you  will NOT be able to evict this tenant. They paid the rent and you haven't given them an opportunity to fix the other issues.

You may want to reach out to more experienced investors to understand what having a rental is really like because what you described is fairly normal. 30% of our portfolio is late every month but your only concern is if they actually pay. As for the way that they are living, you should be doing routine inspections and then hold them accountable. It also sounds like you don't fully understand the laws.

I took his post to mean that originally the tenant was paying the full rent by making multiple payments late during the month, but then started to fall more behind by only paying a total of 50-75% of the rent each month. So, I believe they are delinquent on rent.

I agree with the rest. A lot for the poster to learn and improve upon.

You are probably right... Either way, he is accepting any rent and the courts will not evict them because they are behind. He will have to stop accepting rents and start the eviction process at that time. Depending on the state he will likely not have any sort of case at this time.

I believe somewhere he stated he was aware of the issue about accepting payments after giving the pay or quit eviction notice and stopped the tenant's ability to pay electronically. So, I'm not sure they have that issue at the moment.

Also, I think there is a distinction between receiving and accepting that I would love to have a lawyer respond about. They can mail a check and I have received it, but if I don't cash it it has not been accepted very clearly.

My notices state that I will not accept partial payments without a WRITTEN agreement. So, I would presume that if a tenant sent a partial electronic payment I could simply refund it even at the court hearing claiming that I am not accepting the payment.

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Ivan Smith:

Question 1. Do i really have to restart the process of doing  a 30 day notice starting from the time he last made partial payment in october? 

2. Will i have to disclose these payments in court during the hearing or do i just say he is behind rent since august. 

3. Should i focus on just one thing in the Complaint? just say rent is not being paid, or should i include things like unauthorized pets and damaging property by not having water on since may and sprinkler system disconnected, damage inside property?....will i also have to furnish proof for those items complicating things?

4. Once judgment is granted can i just throw all his stuff in the trash or do i have to keep it for awhile? 

5. Whats the best way to go about evicting him? i feel like property is abandoned but concerned as there are a whole lot of things normal people would take with them. Even if summons is served at the address noone is there to sign it or receive it when a server tries to serve it. how does it work if server cant reach the defendant. Will court still proceed and grant eviction case in my favor?

Thanks for any advice

I'll send you a DM.

[Shannon Mogilinski]

Lawyer up--anything else is wasting time

[Doug McVinua]

@Ivan Smith As an Arizona Property Manager, I would hire an attorney. You can hire an attorney who will handle this case and all of the Court hearings, etc., for $500.00. With the mistakes that have already occurred, you are already costing yourself more than $500.00.

Once the property is vacant and repaired, I would hire a local Property Manager to oversee it. Your losses in this one situation would pay the cost of Property Management for many years. 

I'm not trying to beat you up, but you are throwing thousands of dollars away trying to self-manage this remotely. You will have unpaid rent, eviction costs, repairs, vacancy, travel costs, etc on this property.

[Rene Hosman]

I agree with what most everyone has said, hiring a lawyer will save you money in the long run. I'm shocked @Doug McVinua says it's only $500 to hire an AZ lawyer to do this for you! Never had to do an eviction myself but I thought it would cost more than that in attorney fees, not to mention lost rent, repairs, disposal of all the junk. 

Sorry you're in this situation!

But please make sure you handle the problem legally or you could wind up paying more money, maybe even needing to pay your terrible tenant money, if you go about this the wrong way. 

[Drew Sygit]

Of course, you could also gamble that the tenant won't show up in court and you get a default judgment.