Evicting A Tenant Should Always Be Your Last Resort
By JD Esajian on May 14, 2018
Every day in the world of real estate is a little different. You can be in the business for years and never know when you will experience something new. If you own rental property you may go weeks, if not months, without as much as getting a phone call from your tenant. Then, in the blink of an eye, you will be forced to deal with an unexpected situation, like your tenant not paying.
Not collecting rent brings everything with the property to a screeching halt. Your first reaction may be to simply evict your tenant and move on. Anyone who has ever been in this situation before knows it is not that easy. The process is not only frustrating but time consuming and expensive. If you can avoid eviction you would be wise to do it. Here are five reasons why evicting a tenant should always be your last resort.
- Evictions are expensive. It sounds like an awful cliché, but nobody wins with an eviction. Maybe 1% of all evictions are done intentionally by the tenant. There is usually an unexpected circumstance that creates a negative snowball effect that prompts them to stop paying. On the landlord side there is a tremendous financial impact that goes beyond just the lost rent. For starters you can expect to stop receiving rent a minimum of two months, with three not out of the question. Once you file eviction there are a handful of fees you need to pony up for. Between attorney and court fees alone you can tack on another couple of thousand dollars. All told you will end up spending, or losing, thousands of dollars per eviction.
- Evictions are not quick. If you have never been through an eviction before it is easy to think that you can get the tenant out as soon as they stop paying. They may get a few weeks but there is no way they will stay in the property without paying for more than 30 days, right? The reality is that tenants often have the upper hand in the eviction process. You must show that you have not been negligent with the property and they have been given every chance to pay. Because this is not as simple as reading and enforcing the lease, the courts need to get involved. As you may have heard the court doesn’t operate on your schedule. They usually try to move evictions along, but it could still be weeks before your hearing is heard. If there are any issues or questions at the hearing the next one could be a few weeks after that. Before you know it, you are waiting six weeks for a resolution. Without reserves, you could be in for a very difficult time by no fault of your own.
- Tenants are not in a good place. As we mentioned, it is extremely uncommon for a tenant to simply stop paying their rent. There are some “professional” tenants that move from property to property and play the system, but these are the exception rather than the norm. Most tenants are prompted to stop paying either by loss of job, unexpected injury or a dramatic family circumstance. They know that not paying isn’t right but have no other way around it at this time. It is important to keep this in mind as you approach your tenant. They have something as pressing going on and may not be in the right frame of mind to think rationally. Your aggressive phone calls, texts and emails may only make matters worse. Instead of getting them to pay you may push them to damage the property or to play the process out as long as possible. Obviously, you have the right to collect rent but you need to go about it the right way. Dealing with an angry tenant in the wrong way can immediately make matters worse.
- Attorney issues never stop. If you know that your tenant is going to be late the first thing you need to do is hire an attorney. On the surface this may seem like throwing good money after bad, but the opposite is the case. By thinking you can do everything on your own you can add time and expense to the process. All it takes is one oversight at the hearing to push things back a few weeks. As many benefits are there are with an attorney it doesn’t take from the fact they are expensive. There are a slew of attorney and court fees that add up every step of the way. Even if you have worked with them in the past they still need to get compensated for their time. An eviction is not the time to pinch pennies and not hire an attorney.
- Eviction day is difficult. As a human being it can be difficult watching other people suffer. Sure, you want your tenant to move out, so you can bring a new one in, but you are also compassionate if there is a family involved. If you get to the point where the sheriff must physically evict them this could be a difficult process to go through. On one hand you don’t want to be there and hear your tenant tell you how bad a person you are and to see them thrown out. On the other hand you want to make sure everything is done right so you can move on. The bottom line is that eviction day is not easy for everyone involved.
As soon as your tenant is a few days late you should reach out to them and see what is going on. Taking a few bucks off the rent in the short term can literally save you thousands moving forward. Negotiating with your tenant, even when they are wrong, doesn’t make you soft or weak but rather makes you real estate savvy.