Eviction Horror Stories

[Foggier]

So, I've got this problem, I've been telling my girlfriend about my landlording and how great the cash on cash is and new mechanicals and blah blah, but she's convinced I'm essentially just waiting around to get burned hard by an eviction. She's particularly convinced that if I am forced to evict a single mom with kids AND if she actually shows up to the hearing that it's basically over for me and the judge sides against me and the thing drags on for months and months maybe a year without any rent coming in.

I don't really think the rule of law is in such a state outside of maybe the NYC rental market where pretty much all her experience lies, so, I thought I'd ask all of you guys for your eviction horror stories. Tell me all about your headache evictions and what you did or didn't do that made them such a disaster! Tell me about what % of all your evictions were headaches too!

[mooreprop]

It varies by state, so the best thing to do is go to the courthouse and ask them for the procedure and an approximate timeline for eviction in your area.  In my area of Indiana, I file papers and get a court date within 2 weeks.  After that, the judge will give them a few more days to move out if they are new tenants or a few weeks if they have been there longer.  In 25 years and hundreds of evictions (I used to own slum properties) I have only had one eviction horror story.  That tenant had filed for bankruptcy one day before I filed for eviction and listed me as an unsecured creditor.  They filed in October and listed November, December, and January rent as "debts" they wanted to discharge. 

I was unable to evict until I filed a petition with the federal bankruptcy court to lift the stay on my eviction.  I appeared at their bankruptcy hearing and testified that they were lying to the judge (they claimed they had never before filed and had it was actually their third bankruptcy - I discovered this when I filed in federal court)  Since I was messing up their bankruptcy, they decided to move voluntarily so that I would not show up at the next hearing.  lol

[arebelspy]

Talk to investors in your state.

But the goal is to screen well so you don't have to evict.  Evictions are generally pretty smooth in most places though when they do have to happen.

[Blindsquirrel]

 Part of the cost of doing business, have not evicted anyone in 2 years with 16 units. I tell tenants when the sign the lease, 1. Don't trash my house. 2. You don't pay, you don't stay.  RE has better, safer returns than most investments. Do you want to buy the S&P with a P/E of 17 or a house with a P/E of 5? If you want to be a landlord, got to kick the bums out.

[Distshore]

Fresh from posting questions about my very first eviction - this is a single mother with kids tenant who was already delinquent on rent when I acquired the property.  I am at the stage where a constable will come in 1 week to evict, after having gone through the court process.  I don't yet know how much of a "horror story" this will be - ie is the apartment trashed?  Will she go kicking and screaming?

The courts were very straightforward though, and issued the judgement in my favour without argumentation as the tenant did not dispute the facts of the matter.

I will have lost 4-5 months rent + $100 in interstate trips + $270 in court costs to evict the tenant, all beginning immediately after buying the property when I'm trying to get it running smoothly.  It has definitely shot my cashflow projections to hell, but I would have been pretty surprised if things had gone too smoothly at first.  In addition, due to a mistake made by the electrician who re-wired the house (prior to us buying it), we ended up liable for her entire unpaid electrical bill balance, which of course she hadn't paid in the 6 months since she moved in.  So I have been subsidising the tenant's lifestyle -ouch!!  Due to all of this, we have put more into the property in expenses than we have got out in rent yet.

All that said, we will push through this difficult first 6 months and hope that things will smooth out after that to achieve some MMM-success story results. 

[horsepoor]

We started with a crappy property manager who got us crappy tenants.  New PM had to evict after a couple months of spotty rent payments.  So we had to pay for service to post multiple eviction notices, they didn't show up to their court date, posted a 24 hr notice and they finally left.  Had legal fees associated with that, too.  Left three large dogs abandoned in the back yard.  Their water had been turned off and there was crap and feminine products in one of the toilets.  DH spent about half a day just picking dog crap out of the back yard, and a junk hauler guy took a couple flat bed trailers of crap to the dump.  Beer cans and cigarette butts everywhere.  Had to replace all the carpet in the three bedrooms, and it took 3-4 coats of oil-based primer to cover up the profane/racist grafitti on the walls in the garage.  The stank of cigarettes, stale beer and who knows what else never really came out of the garage.  Oh, they turned my rock garden into a fire pit.  That was nice.

I'd guess overall we lost about $3,500, and it would have been more if we hadn't been available to do much of the work and cleanup ourselves.