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My parents own a home that we have rented out for a number of years now. In October of last year, the lease was up and the tenant began a month to month lease rather than a yearly lease. Two months ago I told him look we are experience tough times and my parents need to sell the house. I told him he’s got two months to get out. Two months later he is still there and hasn’t paid a dime for last months rent. My parents didn’t know what they were doing and let him move in without a security deposit. I need to find the fastest legal way to kick this tenant out. If I hire a lawyer and pay people to get him out of there, is that an expense I can reclaim in small claims? Like I said he owes for last month rent and a $150 dollar water bill + shut off fees (he didn’t pay water bill). What can I do please help! The house is now in my name because my dad died.

Look man, just hire a property management company and they will take care of everything for you. They might want you to pay $500 up front to start the eviction process but it’s worth it to regain control of your property! A property management company will have an attorney they use for evictions and so they can usually get you the lowest rate. They will also take care of fixing your house up and getting it back on the rental market. If you don’t want to rent your house out anymore but instead sell it (which is not a good idea because house prices have come so far down), then contact the attorney yourself. They will handle the entire thing for you for about $500 to $750. DO NOT TRY AND DO IT YOURSELF BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T DO IT EXACTLY RIGHT, IT WILL DELAY EVERYTHING AND COST YOU EVEN MORE MONEY.

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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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