How To Evict A Nonpaying Tenant In The Time of Covid?
It is the 15th of the month and you still haven’t received any rent owed. After dodging a few calls, your tenant finally gets back in touch with you saying they are laid off due to Covid and cannot afford the rent. You’re currently facing every landlord’s worst nightmare, a nonpaying tenant, with no legal recourse to remove them. Or is there?
The recent federal eviction moratorium has just been extended until 12/27/21.
The big fear is that unscrupulous tenants will take advantage of the system. They will halt all rent payments and by the time your case is visited a year and a half has passed and you are out many thousands of dollars. (This is why background checks are so important!). While I do not doubt that there are many people facing unmeasurable hardships and do need drastic help, what the government has failed to do is to also help the struggling landlords. The stereotypical mindset of the greedy landlord still persists, in spite of the reality that most real estate investors only cash flow between $200-$300 per month. I challenge any congress person to become a landlord first for a year before passing any legislation. I digress, as a real estate investor, you still have options available to you!
- If your resident is behind in rent, attempt to work out a payment plan to get them back on track. Your tenants will appreciate the flexibility and you can possibly avoid an eviction altogether. This is especially true if you’ve had an otherwise model tenant. It can take a few weeks for someone to start receiving unemployment benefits and good people will honor their rental commitment.
- Document every single transaction to create an audit trail, this will come in handy when presenting a case to a judge.
- The tenant has to prove that their income was directly affected by Covid and fill out a Declaration of Income.
- Even though it is very difficult to evict a tenant, I would still advise them that this process will still go on record for years to come. It will destroy their credit and the eviction will pop up on any background check. This will make finding another rental extremely difficult.
Under the Governor’s statewide moratorium, the landlord can start an eviction case in court if
- you owe rent from before March of 2020;
- you owe six months’ rent or more that was due on or after March 1, 2020;
- the landlord says you did something that was a serious nuisance; or
- the landlord wants to live in your apartment as their primary residence.
While these conversations are by no means easy, you still can get a non paying tenant out!
