Real Estate Investing Facts

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If you are in the rental business, sooner or later, you are going to have a renter who inexplicably ceases paying rent. They may give you the run around with stories about why they can’t pay and promises of an entire payment plus late fees just around the corner. Or, they can simply neglect your phone calls and refuse to answer the door if you show up in person trying to collect rent. Bottom line is, when it comes to this point, such renters will need to be served with a three day notice to leave to start the evictions process. A suffolk evictions lawyer can help you with this.

While you may be frustrated and seduced to take measures into your own hands, it is quite essential to keep to the legal procedures for removing a non-paying renter from your premises. Specifically, the law expressly forbids you from doing the following:

Changing Locks

In no way is it legal for you to remove the locks, or install new locks on the property to “lock out” your tenant. It doesn’t matter if they are months behind on their rent, have entirely trashed the property and are in violation of every provision in the lease. They are lawfully protected against a “lock out” and may take you to court to regain entry.

Utility Shut-offs

You may not shut off the water, gas or electricity for the purpose to force your tenants to move out. Again, your renters, however far behind in rent they are, can seek legal recourse against you for this action and can collect heavy fines against you.

Taking Renter’s Property

You can not harass your tenant into moving out. This would include illegally entering the rental unit and taking their property. Only under very specific conditions (abandonment) is a landlord allowed to remove a renter’s possessions.

Physical Removal

Just the legal authority (usually the sheriff’s office or their agents) is allowed to remove a tenant after a writ of possession is obtained from the court and the legal waiting time has finished. This means that you can’t hire your own help to physically move out an occupant. Consult a nassau evictions lawyer for more information.

While the above list describes the main things that you, as a landlord, cannot do to get a tenant to move out, it is not all inclusive. Any number of different creative strategies to harass a tenant to leave are also illegal.

The one legal way to remove a renter from your property is to go through the legal eviction process. Yes, it costs money and yes it takes time. Remember that you are able to deduct the unpaid rent for the term that your renter remains in the property during the eviction process from their security deposit.

Canadian Foreclosures

Foreclosures in the United States.

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Tags: Canadian Foreclosures, Foreclosures, nassau evictions lawyer, Set Your Goals, suffolk evictions lawyer