Q. When can I evict a tenant?
A. A tenant can be evicted by a landlord if any one or more of the following situations are true:
• The tenant failed to pay his/her rent
• The tenant violated the rental or lease agreement
• The tenant, one of the occupants, or any guest visiting the tenant caused an intentional damage to the property and/or disturbed other tenants or the landlord by seriously interfering with their reasonable enjoyment
• The landlord and/or any of the landlord’s immediate family members requires the rented property for his/her personal use
Q. Does the law allow me to evict a renter just because I want to sell the property?
A. No, the law doesn’t give a landlord the right to evict a renter just for selling the property.
If a property is sold the lease agreement between the original landlord and the tenant automatically gets transferred to the new property owner. To put it more bluntly, the new property owner remains obligated to abide by the clauses of the original lease agreement.
Q. Can I evict a renter to make major renovations to my property?
A. Yes, landlords hold the right to evict renters for carrying out major renovations in the rented property.
However, once the renovation is over the tenant should be given the right to refuse to reoccupy the property. In addition, most states also require the landlord to pay the tenant rents for up to three months.
Q. After termination of the lease and eviction, will the tenant owe me any rent?
A. Termination of the lease and rental eviction following the termination mean that the landlord and the court have terminated the tenant’s right of occupying the premises.
In some states, however, the tenant might still need to pay the rent for the remaining period of lease.
Q. Do I reserve the right of physically throwing the tenant out or taking his/her possession after the court orders eviction?
A. No, you don’t.
Physical eviction of the tenant from the premises of your property should always be conducted by a property authority or the sheriff. According to the law of the country, only the court holds the right of evicting a tenant. Court proceedings ensure that landlords don’t end up opting for self-help evictions.
In case of unpaid rents, the court often orders the landlord to adopt the regular debt-collection methods of getting all dues cleared. These may include bank account attachment, garnishment of partial wage etc.
Q. How long will I have to wait for the rental eviction process to get over?
A. If your tenant doesn’t empty the rented property even after the notice period mentioned by you is over, you have the right to file a lawsuit in court alleging unlawful detaining and forcible entry in your property.
The case will be assigned for trial as a quick proceeding or summery.
This would be followed by a trial or default proceeding, after which the court will be providing a judgment. The minimum waiting time for the trial would be around two weeks. Depending on which state you live in, you may see the judge order an eviction right away once the trial is over.
Typically, the court would give the tenant enough time for moving out. The time given by the court ranges from 1 to 4 weeks. If the tenant still refuses to evict after that period, the landlord would need to employ the marshal or the sheriff for carrying out a forceful eviction. This might extend the total time required for eviction by several weeks. The landlord might need to wait more if the tenant objects to the court’s decision or requests for more time from the court.
So, it can be said that the time required for the eviction process to finish depends entirely on how the tenant would react. To put it more bluntly, once the notice period is over, the landlord may need to wait for a period of five weeks to as many as three months for the eviction to occur. This mentioned time period has been set assuming that there would be no delay.
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