How to Prevent an Eviction

Hi, this is Steve Rosenberg with Empire Industries Property Management Company, we’re located down in Houston, Texas.

What we’re going to talk about today is how to avoid the problem tenant and the inevitable eviction. What I can tell you is first of all, always make sure that you have strict policies and procedures on screening your tenants and more importantly stick to those policies and procedures.

Always… always do a background check on your tenant, no matter what they tell you or what your gut instinct says, don’t do anyone a favor, go by the background. If they do not fit your criteria then I would suggest you not take them. You got to remember you are running a business, and if they don’t fit the qualifications that you have, then you should not put them in your property. Don’t go outside of your gut and don’t do it on the fly like a lot of people do.

Remember, leases are legal documents, once they’ve signed that document, your job is to make sure that you enforce that lease, meaning if it says they are supposed to pay on the first and late on the third, late fee should start and if they don’t pay after certain amount of days you should start the eviction. They are obligated to abide by their side just as much as you are obligated to enforce the other side.

Always… always stick to your policies, procedures, and the rules. Never deviate, never bend. Once you do that you start setting a precedent for the future. One of the biggest issues I’ve seen over the years is the landlord would come to us. They would give us a property with a tenant that hasn’t paid for 6 months. And I we’ll tell the owner after one month it’s no longer a problem tenant, it’s a problem landlord by not sticking to their business model. And you know if you have one house, or if you have 50 houses you own a business. And if you don’t have a successful business model and you do not have a business plan for that business, chances are you probably will fail. You got to remember, the IRS says you are a business, Texas Real Estate Commission says you are a business, Fair Housing and Texas Property Code, they all say you’re a business, all the government agencies. The person that normally doesn’t think it’s a business is normally the actual owner of the property.

You want to make sure that if you don’t have a successful business plan in place you need to create one. If you don’t have one and you don’t want to create one then maybe it’s a good idea to contact a local property management company. See what kind of business plan they have to help you be successful and maybe it would be a good idea to partner with them. Sit down and try to create one yourself.