Oh boy, where to start. First timer here (possibly need to evict), please read the whole post, consider all potential's and discuss. Thank you! And yes there are 1000 red flags I know, we can get into my decisions to bring these tenants on in a different thread. It was a risk i was willing to take and has gone bad.
On may 1st, 2021 I entered into 2 separate leases, on the same property. each tenant a single male, each to occupy outlined parts of the house and garage. Things were going great until around January 2021. I received multiple complaints from both tenants about each other, more complaints from who well refer to as tenant A, than from tenant B. I attempted to resolve issues between tenants but it got to the point where tenant A had to file a police report against tenant B, and decided to break his lease 1 week later due to the "unsafe living conditions" provided by tenant B. This was middle of February 2022. I have no issues with tenant A, and we came to an agreement on his terms of the lease and his departure from the lease. I did not file anything that would show he defaulted on his lease.
Reasons provided by Tenant A for breaking his lease early include but are not limited to (I have likely forgot a few reasons), overall nuisance, tenant B entering tenant A's room while tenant A is away without authorization, tenant B yelling and screaming at tenant A for smoking outside the house, tenant B yelling and screaming at tenant A for not letting his dog out when he isn't home, tenant B yelling and screaming at tenant A for working on his vehicle in HIS paid for portion of the garage, tenant B not paying the bills tenant A gave tenant B to pay, tenant B leaving a CROSSBOW (fire arm, loaded or unloaded is not known) on top of the refrigerator in the shared area. Tenant B modifying the IP address on the wi-fi router so tenant A could not access the internet he paid for. Tenant B allowing his dogs to urinate all over the house continuously for months on end. And the final straw was tenant A filing a police report against tenant B for verbal assault. Now I know none of this was really my concern, but its all part of the scenario.
Tenant B illegally operates an automotive detail business out of the garage. I gave him permission to do this, wheatear it was verbal or over text I forget, I believe it was verbal. There is nothing in the lease about this. I will use this to evict him if I can. What I do not know is if he has physical evidence that I agreed to this. Also, it might still be grounds to evict if my consent outside of the lease agreement has no merit.
Both tenants signed their own lease that states they will pay ALL utilities including WATER and SEWER (Of which if you saw my post last week, is required by the city to stay in my name). The tenants on their own behalf agreed they would split the bills. Tenant B who still occupies the property took it upon himself to put all the bill's in his name, and have Tenant A pay him directly. (Not my issue). However tenant B has failed to pay multiple bills, including but not limited to the WATER and SEWER bill which is in my name. As we discussed last week I am allowed to use his security deposit to pay any unpaid bills that are in my name. However, the unfortunate part is there is not likely to be much of the deposit left to cover any damages. I have talked with tenant B multiple times through ought the last year as he has been behind on the WATER and SEWER bill the entirety of the lease. He kept assuring me he would take care of it and never did. As of last week i discovered he has not made a payment on that bill since disremember, and currently owes near $600.
The lease expires end of April 2022. In February I notified both tenants in person with a signed document that i would not be renewing their leases, as I am selling the house. (market in WA is great, going to sell to re invest into a duplex, so these bad apples aren't making me quit!!). Tenant A vacated the property, like I said, to which I do not have any problem with.
Tenant B has been a royal pain in the (choose your favorite describer) since this time period. tenant B agreed he would look for another place and hope to be out by end of March. We verbally agreed I would apply his last months payment (applied before move in) towards march and he would be out by end of march or if he needed to stay to the end of April and fulfil his lease, then he would pay for April. (obviously this was a bad choice on my part). I made these decisions as to attempt to keep tenant B happy and avoid him causing further damage to the property. This is the same tenant B giving me grief about remodeling the bathroom previously occupied by tenant A. tenant B declines to pay the half of rent which was previously paid by tenant A, and due to wording in the lease has the right to do so, so I am eating this expense.
As of today, I had a phone call with tenant B in regards to his living situation and what our plan is for April. He plans on staying as he has no where to go. He told me he has no intention of paying his rent for the moth of April and that I should just keep his deposit and his NON refundable PET fee of which I have signed addendums for. Of course I did not agree to this as the writing is on the wall, his intension are to stay there for free, and he will likely try and sue me for the deposit after all this. he is also under the assumption he is getting his pet fee back even though the addendum clearly states NON REFUNDABLE.
As of today, he technically has not paid for the month of march, since as I stated, there is no legal document signed that I would count his "last months rent" a month early. Again this decision was made to try and avoid risk, have him vacate early and cause no further damage.
Of further information, tenant B has very poor credit, NO w2 or 1099 (for his illegal detail business), 3 dogs, of which one of them is a Rottweiler (pretty much no lease out there allows this breed) and he expects to find another place that will let him run his business.
Unfortunately I knowingly made every wrong decision for a beginner, but on the plus side, I was able to keep the house, acquire a new primary residence, make a few grand from rental income, and due to the current market inflation, stand to make another 150k profit on the house if sold in todays market instead of last years market. So not all is bad. And There's no better way to learn than to make the mistakes, especially early on.
So naturally the topics of discussion are: do i have grounds to 3 day evict tenant B, and more importantly: Do i evict tenant B? His lease ends in 1 month. Do i just eat the additional $1600 (1 month of tenant B's rent), let him stay there and hope because i was generous he wont cause 10's of thousands of dollars in damages. i feel i have bent over backwards by not evicting him in February, working with him in the monetary part, allowing him to get away with everything so far, that the possibility if i continue try and keep him happy, that it will all be for not and he will continue to take advantage, not vacate the property at the end of the lease, and cause further damages. Of further possible discussion, what expenses attributed to evicting tenant B am I to expect and might these expenses be more than letting him stay until his lease expires?
My goodness that's a lot. Thank you for reading this far and i look forward to discussing.
