Posted by Deb on January 11, 2005 at 19:02:29:
I appreciate the advice.
Verbal lease- eviction? - Posted by Deb
Posted by Deb on January 11, 2005 at 05:48:58:
I’m looking at working with a situation where the owner has no signed lease but the tenant has been there for 2+ years and pays on time. How do we go about getting the tenant out so that we can go in to rehab to sell? Does the tenant have any recourse if they had a verbal agreement that they could rent the house for at least 3 years?
Thanks!
Deb
Re: Verbal lease- eviction? - Posted by John Merchant
Posted by John Merchant on January 15, 2005 at 09:47:48:
I know that in State of WA, a lease of 12 months or longer MUST be in writing and have notary acknowledgement. If it does not comply in both, it is invalid and only a m-t-m rental.
I suspect a number of other states have similar laws, so ask a lawyer to check the law in your state to see if the agreement is a valid lease or only a m-t-m.
Re: Verbal lease- eviction? - Posted by JohnBoy
Posted by JohnBoy on January 11, 2005 at 09:31:33:
Verbal agreements are not enforceable. If there is no written lease then it is a month - month lease. All that is needed is to serve proper notice to vacate. Some states only require 30 days notice and some require 60 days. You have to check what the laws are in your state. Notice also has to be served prior to the 1st of any given month where the 30 - 60 days notice runs from the 1st of the month to the last day of the month. You can’t give notice from the 12th to the 12th of a month.
After you serve proper notice and the tenant fails to vacate then you would have to file for eviction to have the tenant evicted. You are dealing with a tenant that you say has always paid on time. So if the tenant tries to fight the eviction it could delay the process. The tenant could cry they need more time to find a suitable place to live where a Judge could grant the tenant another 30 - 90 days to find a place. It depends on the Judge.
So depending on the tenant and the legal process in your state this could take several months to get the tenant out and be a costly process for you.
You may want to consider paying the tenant to leave to speed the process up and get them out quicker.
If this tenant pays on time and is a good tenant, then why the hurry to get them out to resell the property? Why not collect the rent and make some cash flow on the property and rehab it later when the tenant leaves?
Or see if the tenant would be interested in buying the property since they want to stay so bad. Offer to discount the price by offering to discount your rehab costs from the price you would get after it was rehabbed. You would make the same profit, save on having to rehab it, the tenant would get to stay and everyone would be happy!
Otherwise to speed the process up and the tenant out quicker, offer to pay the tenant’s first month rent and security on another place to move into. This would probably be cheaper in the long run than having to pay an attorney to go through the eviction process if the tenant refuses to peacefully vacate after serving proper notice.