My wife and I have long enjoyed the benefits that come with owning rental real estate. The extra income each month has given us freedom within our monthly budget to fund things like our personal mortgage payoff, vacations and other investments. Granted it hasn’t been the easiest side hustle and we have learned many lessons along the way. One of those was the process we had to go through while evicting a tenant.
Evicting a tenant is one of rental real estate’s darker sides. No one ever thinks they will have to do this when a tenant signs the rental agreement. We trust our background research and intuition about the person we’ve selected to fill the property. And we expect the tenant to honor their part of the rental agreement.
We provide them with quality lodging. They pay us for that service. That’s how this business is supposed to work. So, what could possible go wrong with such a simple arrangement?
Actually, plenty can go wrong. Especially when the tenant sees an opening they feel like they can take advantage of.
This is our story of how we dealt with a tenant who refused to pay his rent, how we went about evicting him and the lessons we learned from it.
The Joy of Rental Repairs
The problems for us began in the month of March. Our tenant who had recently moved into the property called us, claiming he had no water. I immediately called our well support team who was there within the hour to investigate the situation. I thought it may have been a loss of water pressure in the well pump. That’s not uncommon and easily fixable.
As it turns out, it was a water pressure issue which the well company fixed that day.
However, upon closer inspection during the repairs we found that our shallow well was slowly dying of its water reserves because of multi-year drought conditions. We determined that over the long term, the only workable solution for the tenant and our property was to drill a deep well, hundreds of feet down into the bedrock where there is virtually an unlimited supply of water. We hired a company and the drilling and well installation took place within 2 weeks. Problem solved.
That was a major, unexpected expense but did increase the value of the property to have this type of well. Thankfully, we had a business emergency fund for such issues.
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Well Follow Up
The repair issues weren’t over as quickly as we had though. The next phone call came a week later saying the toilets were continually running and the water flow from the several faucets was irregular. Evidently during the drilling of the well, silt had managed to be flushed into the water line between the well and the house. When the water was turned on, the silt flowed into the house and became trapped in the mesh of the faucet valves and in the toilet flow valves, thus causing them to function improperly.
Our plumbing support team quickly jumped on this issue and resolved it within days. After the repair, I heard nothing from the tenant as to further problems. In the meantime, we had a filter installed at the well pump in order to prevent the flow of silt to the house.
Rental life back to normal…until it wasn’t.
Show Me the Money
In May, I received no rent from the tenant. So as any good property manager would do, I gave him a courtesy call to find out what life issues had crept up that prevented him from paying rent on time. That’s when the excuses began.
At first, he apologized and said he would make arrangements to make payment the next day. No rent came the next day, so I called him again. This time he said he hadn’t been able to get off work in time to make the payment.
At this point, late fees are beginning to accrue. I’m beginning to get red flags in my mind and start considering what evicting a tenant would look like.
The next time I attempted to reach him, I only received busy signals from his phone. The situation is getting worse.
Several days passed before we spoke again. Finally, in that discussion it was agreed that he would pay for May and June in a couple of weeks. He revealed he had fallen on some hard times but would have all the money for those two months once he finished a job at work.
At this point I began to document everything. I sent him a certified letter stating what he owed me and when.
More Property Repairs
A week later, I’m on vacation with my family and receive a call from our now irate tenant that the plumbing issues have resurfaced. Evidently, some silt remained in the water lines to the house and was causing the same problems as before. I gave him the number to contact our plumbing support team and told him I would be back in town in a few days. I then called the plumbing company, to let them know of the situation and to expect a call from our tenant.
Our plumbers actually reached out to him with a phone call that he never returned. So I arranged for the exterior water lines running from the well pump to the house to be drained, along with the water heater, and all the water lines in the house. I even had the washer and dryer and the dishwasher checked by a qualified appliance technician to make sure there had been no damage.
At this point, I’m entirely confident our silt problem has been taken care of. And I still haven’t seen any money for two months. Even though:
1) we were never negligent and responded quickly to correct each issue;
2) he had never been completely without water;
3) he was never forced to leave the residence.
Evicting a Tenant: Going to Court
Our tenant continued to stonewall us with the rent. He refused to pay us on the grounds that he was being inconvenienced by the water issues (even though at this point they had been completely resolved). We had no choice but to send him a Notice of Termination of Lease letter. It stated he was in violation of the rental agreement for non-payment of rent and had one week to move out or pay the rent in full. If he did neither of those things we would file an Affidavit of Dispossessory with our county magistrate court.
Think we saw any money? Actually we did, the next day – but only partial payment.
So a week later, when we had not received our full payment by the given deadline, I made one last courtesy phone call in an attempt to collect our money. His response – “I’m at work and can’t take off to see you.”
I filed the paperwork to begin evicting the tenant the following hour.
It’s now July. No rent payment for that month either.
Evicting the Tenant: Seeing the Judge
The court process took several weeks to unfold. When evicting a tenant in my state, the tenant is given a week to answer the claim brought against him. In essence, the tenants state their case as to why they haven’t paid. The reason he gave for nonpayment of rent rested solely on being inconvenienced by the water issues. That statement was true enough, but I knew from reading our state’s Landlord/Tenant Handbook that this reasoning did not provide him sufficient evidence to win.
So the court set a date to hear the case.
When the proceeding began, the first thing the judge did was to instruct the parties to meet together before the actual hearing. It’s essentially one last attempt to settle the disagreement. It’s really in everyone’s best interests – including the courts – if parties come to an amicable agreement on their own. So we stepped into the hallway just outside the courtroom doors for one final negotiation.
I showed him the amount he now owed us, which was substantial after months of accumulated late fees. Of course he didn’t have the money. I explained to him that according to our state’s landlord/tenant law he had no case and would lose if he forced me to present my case to the judge. The verdict against him would probably lead to the garnishing of his wages. He tried to come up with more excuses and sounded like he was willing to put our disagreement to the test.
“Who Needs This?” I Thought
I had reached the point where I simply wanted him out of the property. It was time to move on. Even if I pushed forward with the court case against him and won the judgment, I was positive he would be a continuing issue going forward. So I offered him a deal he could not refuse.
I gave him complete forgiveness of all debts if he was out of the house in two weeks. If he didn’t move in that time frame, I’d file another court order so I could hire the sheriff to come and forcibly remove him.
He didn’t think twice before signing.
Twenty minutes later we had filed the paperwork with the clerk of courts, talked to the judge about our settlement and wished each other well.
Two weeks later he moved out and I had my rental property back.
Evicting a Tenant Lessons
In retrospect, I didn’t view this situation negatively. Yes, I didn’t enjoy it when I was going through it. But the experience forced me to grow up as a landlord and taught me some valuable lessons. Here is what I learned through evicting a tenant:
1. Document every potential issue that comes up. Keep a running file on each tenant with summaries of conversations, issues and disagreements. You can use this documentation as a reference in court when evicting a tenant.
2. Fulfill your obligations as the landlord to complete repairs in a timely fashion. Refuse to let things slide that you need to take care of. Be prompt and responsive to the tenants needs so they can’t claim you’ve been negligent.
3. Keep records of all receipts and work orders that prove work was done at the property.
4. If you can’t afford to miss 3-6 months of rental payments from the tenant, you shouldn’t be investing in real estate.
5. The court system exists to back you up as a landlord. Utilize it. Evicting a tenant is a long and tense process. Be prepared to present your case based on your state’s law. Don’t bluff your tenant by saying you will take them to court if you are not fully committed to going there.
6. At some point, landlords have to be a bit cold-blooded. I believe in being fair and even generous at times. Some situations should require it. But rental real estate is a business and I want to be successful with it. If a tenant flaunts the rental agreement, they need to go.
Related Content: How to Be a Successful Landlord: Five Best Practices
Conclusion
This experience didn’t irrevocably scar me from being a landlord. I still love the business and the ability I have to help people meet their housing needs. And it shouldn’t scare anyone else from investing in rental real estate.
But nonpayment of rent is a reality of the business that most people don’t consider. Ask yourself, “Would I be comfortable with evicting a tenant?” If you don’t have the fortitude to handle such a crisis, you’re best to invest your resources in some other way. Or at the least, hire a professional rental company to manage your properties for you and let them handle it.
Leave a Comment or Answer a Question Below: If you are a landlord, do you have experience evicting a tenant? Does this story change the way you view rental real estate? What’s your worst landlord/tenant horror story? What other advice would you give someone about investing in rental real estate to avoid a situation like this one?
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