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I am so nice that I let the tenant move in without a lease agreeement. I want to go back and do one now, but the tenant won’t sign it. Guess what? The tenant did not pay the 1st month rent! It’s now 20 days late! He did pay cash for the security deposit.

Since no lease agreement exits, what is the right process to quick this tenant out?

You’re so nice? Nice is not the first word that comes to mind. In fact, nice is not even the top 2 words that come to mind. The word STUPID does. What in the world were you thinking? If you can’t make better decisions as an owner who rents out his home than this, you NEED to hire a property management company. A good property management company will cost anywhere from 5% to 10% of the monthly rent collected. If you don’t have a paying tenant, they don’t charge you a management fee. Let’s say your home rents for $900 a month, this means that a property management company would charge you anywhere from $45 to $90 a month. You would still get to keep over 90% of the profit. So what’s your problem? Stop being stupid. Now what can you do to try and fix the mess you caused?

If there is no lease, the court in your area may define this as an “at-will” non-written agreement. Tenant-at-will agreements are month-to-month agreements that can be verbal agreements.

Serve the dead-beat tenant with a 3 day notice to pay rent or quit. Do not try and salvage the relationship with this tenant by trying to get him to sign a lease agreement. For example, you can’t serve a 3 day notice to pay rent or quit and then kick him out because he refused to sign your lease agreement. The court will see that he paid the rent and yet you still kicked him out. Forget trying to salvage the relationship with this tenant. You need to kick him out for non-payment of rent.

After a total of 30 days has gone by without the full months rent being paid, file an eviction notice with the court or hire an attorney eviction service to do it for you.

Never do this again. Once you kick this guy out, with your next tenant make sure you ALWAYS have them sign a lease agreement. A lease agreement isn’t about being nice or not. A lease agreement is about putting a set of rules out on the table that protect both you and the tenant and give a clear course of action if either you or the tenant violates his part of the agreement.

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What is the correct procedure for getting a tenant evicted when he refuses to do so even though I served him with a notice? How hard is it to evict a tenant when the tenancy agreement has expired? While I go about getting the eviction order, does the tenant still have to pay their rent during this time?

Every state has their own specific steps to follow. You can’t call the police and have a lock out done until you get the eviction order from the court.

When I get the eviction order from the court, I call the constable and have him execute the order. If they don’t leave, the constable calls the police and the police do a lock out.

You need to do a search for the landlord tenant laws in your state to make sure you follow the steps correctly. If you make a procedurial error, the whole clock has to start over again.

Don’t be scared about doing it. I evicted my tenant in 25 days start to finish all by myself. I created all the forms I needed on Word and I download the Arizona landlord’s handbook.

The key is to start the legal clock ASAP. It cost me about $200 altogether.

The first thing you need to do is to download the landlord handbook for your state.

If you live in Arizona, then go here: http://www.supreme.state.az.us/info/brochures/landlord.htm

If you live in California, then go here: http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/index.shtml

If you live in New Jersey, then go here: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/civil/civ-04.htm

If you live in New York, then go here: http://www.megalaw.com/ny/top/nylandlord.php

etc…

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