I leased out my house now tenant wont pay rent I want to give up the house and just walk away how?
I moved a tenant into one of my homes. The tenant will not pay the rent. I have tried to call the tenant over and over again but they will not return my calls. The tenant will not even talk with me to explain why they will not pay the rent. I want to just give up the house and walk away from this whole mess. Can I do that?
No. Do not just walk away from your home. Why reward your dead beat tenant with a house? What you need to do is to serve them a Notice To Pay Rent Or Quit right now. Then after the 3 days is up and they have not paid, file an Unlawful Detainer with the courts.
It’s a pretty simple process but if you don’t want to do it, for a fee you can hire an attorney or an eviction service to do it for you.
In the future, you have to be more careful with screening your prospects before they become a tenant. You can pass off the cost of the background check onto your prospect (non-refundable) and you can do the background check over the Internet. If you see someone that has bad credit and a long list of court case after court case, don’t move them in.
Tags: background check, bad credit, court case, eviction service, prospects, refundable, unlawful detainer
October 13th, 2008 at 1:28 am
I don’t think you should just walk away from your home. What you should do is to call a lawyer and start the eviction process immediately. You can deduct the cost of the eviction (including any fees or damages you have to pay as the result of the eviction) off your taxes.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Call a lawyer. You did have the tenant sign a lease agreement when you moved them in right? If you didn’t, then this is going to be a long drawn out process. If you did have them sign a lease agreement, then they broke the legal binding contract when they failed to pay you the rent. You can have them removed from your home for violating the lease agreement.
Get all your paper work together that documents everything and give a lawyer a call.
Or, just do the process yourself. There are several good articles on this website that will tell you exactly what you need to do and best of all, that education doesn’t cost you a thing, so take advantage of it.
October 13th, 2008 at 2:19 am
I don’t understand why the thought of filing with the court to evict the tenant has not occurred to you. Why would you be willing to walk away from your $100,000+ home over something as simple as this? I really don’t understand where you are coming from. Your question seems sort of absurd.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:39 am
I am going through the same thing I made the biggest mistake in my life and didn’t do a background check. I took my tennants to court I did start eviction on them I showed up in court and they didn’t till 3 hours later and the judge took there monies which was short and they took monies from there security to use towards it. They even signed saying they couldn’t use any of the security towards the rent and the judge told them they could. I am so sick of this I need my house back I just got laid off from my job and me and my husband can’t pay are mortage on the home because they are not paying the rent they are late again on this month’s rent and I have to start the eviction process all over again. I will never rent again I was only doing it because I got a job assignment for 6 months in another state and I though I could get caught up on my bills never again.. Thank god the lease is up in July..