How to Evict a Tenant: The Process Explained For Landlords

[00:00]

I’ve been a landlord for almost 20 years now. I’ve had hundreds of tenants and 99% of them have been wonderful. They paid on time, they treated the property well, and they followed the simple rules of our rental contract, especially when we as the property owners, offer a good property and do our job of screening tenants before they move in. This is is the norm. And out of the other 1%, many of them couldn’t pay because of legitimate issues like a health problem or they lost their job.

[00:26]

It wasn’t that they were bad people, life just happened in those situations. If the tenants couldn’t make up the back payments over time, we worked together to help them find different housing. And in many cases, we also gave them some cash to help them get restarted. But sometimes a tenant doesn’t pay on time. They stop communicating with you and they leave you with no other choice but to file an eviction to legally take back your property.

[00:46]

There’s no sugar coating it. This rare situation is not fun. An eviction is not something I ever wanted to do as a landlord. And of course, it’s an awful experience for the tenant as well, but especially for the small and mighty investors who typically watch this channel. The reality is that you have a mortgage and taxes and insurance and other bills that have to be paid each and every month whether or not you have rent coming in.

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So you can’t prolong a situation where you’re not getting rent, where you’re losing money, and where you risk going out of business yourself. So if you find yourself in this situation, or if you’re just a new landlord who wants to understand how the eviction process works, in this video I’m going to explain the basics and take you through the process of how to evict the tenant step by step. Let’s get started.

[01:35]

Today’s question came from someone on YouTube and said, hey Chad, love your channel. Can you discuss the eviction process? Maybe have a guest talk about what they went through? So I’m definitely going to come back and do an interview with someone and talk about actual eviction processes and what the story was and what happened. But today’s video, I’m going to answer your question about the eviction process.

[01:52]

The first point I want to make about the eviction process, and I hope I made myself really clear about this upfront, is that eviction is not the goal. In a way, an eviction is a failure, not only for the tenant who’s living there, but also for you as a landlord, we should do everything we can to avoid an eviction, and that starts upfront when you’re actually screening your tenants. So having a tenant screening process, which I’m not going to talk about in detail in this video, but I have other videos you can check out. I have a link above me we can check out a conversation I had about tenant screening and best practices for that. But if you do a good job of making sure someone can afford the property, you don’t do a favor either to yourself or to the tenant if they can’t afford it.

[02:29]

So you got to look at their financials, their expenses, make sure they can afford it with their job. And they have demonstrated a history of paying people, other people on time. That’s a really important process. And if you do that, most of the time your tenant is going to be fine and they’re going to be able to pay. But again, if you find yourself in the situation where someone can’t pay, talk to them.

[02:47]

Have communication upfront. Too many landlords have the kneejerk response of saying I’m just going to file an eviction, I’m going to get them out of there. But we all know whether it’s an eviction or any other problem we have in life with someone else often getting face to face, having a phone conversation at a minimum, but maybe just going face to face. Either you as the landlord, if you’re self managing it, or the property manager, go directly to the person, let’s solve the problem. We often want to stick our heads in the sand and kind of avoid the problem.

[03:11]

But if you talk about it, sometimes there’s a solution. And so what are the solutions? In our case, if someone can make a payment plan, let’s say they had $1,000 bill doing a car repair, they still have a job, they still have the ability to pay and they could kind of skip on some other expenses for now while they pay their back rent for the next few months. If they can do that, that’s great. And we’ve worked out tons of payment plans with tenants in the past.

[03:32]

So if you can do that, if they can demonstrate they can afford that, put that in writing, in an email, make a payment plan and work it out. And so even if that doesn’t work though, so if they can’t afford it, even if they need to move out, then work with them to help them move out. Doing a cash for keys program is something we’ve often done. And so you give them some money to help them move. They’re out of money and they don’t have any money from their job or whatever, they’re not going to be able to move.

[03:55]

So giving them some cash kind of swallowing your pride as a landlord and saying, I’m going to help them move. This could be better for them, this could be better for me. It’s a lot less costly than going through an eviction and having to pay an attorney or having to miss rent for many months. All of that can be a win win situation, but it takes talking to the person, communicating, having a real difficult conversation, but an important conversation. If you can work that out together, it can be better in the end than ever doing an eviction.

[04:22]

But in the end, if all of that fails, then we proceed to having to do an eviction, putting it off until later, waiting months and months and months and not getting rent as a landlord is not the solution either. You’ve got to do something pretty quickly. You’ve got to decide quickly to do something and then if that doesn’t work out, file an eviction. What does it mean to file an eviction? It means to begin the legal process of taking back the property from someone who’s living there as a tenant.

[04:47]

Legal is the key word here. And I want to emphasize this is an educational video. I’m going to go through the steps from an educational standpoint, but this is not legal advice. Every state that you’re investing in has different laws when it comes to landlords and tenants and how to file an eviction. So you’re going to want to talk to a local attorney to really understand how the process works.

[05:05]

It could take as quick as 30 days in some case to go through this legal process in a more landlord friendly state. And in a more tenant friendly state, it could take many months to go through the exact same process. And also in some states, you can file this eviction yourself as the owner of the property, or maybe your property manager can file it. And it’s usually in something called small claims court, which is a type of court for handling smaller issues, smaller amounts of money, and also evictions. So you could handle this yourself if you’re more experienced at it.

[05:33]

But in many cases, and sometimes by law, you have to hire an attorney to help you do this. So those are the kinds of details you’re going to want to understand on a local basis. So with all that said, you can understand the basic eviction process in nine steps. And the first step is you have to have some calls, a reason for beginning this legal process to file an eviction. And the most common cause is nonpayment of rent, which we’ve already talked about.

[05:57]

But there can also be other causes for evictions. So you have a legal agreement, typically called a lease or a rental agreement, and there’s other rules within that legal agreement. For example, you might say that only this person can legally live in the property because they’ve gone through an application process. And if someone else moves into the property, they have to file an application and get permission from you as a landlord. And if they don’t do that, then they’re in breach of the contract and you can file an eviction at that point if they don’t remedy that, if they don’t fix that.

[06:25]

So that could be a cause. And there’s a whole list of other causes which you can get into and you want to research a little bit. The most common one, though, is nonpayment of rent. And I’m going to focus on that in this video.

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By the way, if you’re finding this video helpful, I’d always appreciate it. If you smash the like button, it’s free to do and it helps me a lot. I appreciate it. The second step in the process of an eviction is actually giving notice to your tenant. So you’ve got to give written notice about the cause of the eviction.

[06:57]

So in the case where they have nonpayment, they’re not paying their rent, you need to let them know. And this is usually called a pay or quit notice that you give them a certain number of days. And this is where each state has a little bit different laws on how this has to work. But let’s say, for example, in my case, you have to give them a five day notice in the state of South Carolina. So you give them a written notice saying you haven’t paid your rent, you need to pay this, and you have five days to remedy this or to make this better, to pay the back of rent.

[07:22]

And you have to give that to them. So how do you get that to them? In some cases, states allow you to put it on their door. I recommend and what we normally do is to send certified mail. So this is you actually get a receipt showing that they signed it and they actually received it.

[07:34]

You can show that to the court that it was actually delivered. You could also pay someone called a process server. So this is a business. These are people who deliver legal papers and then they can verify to the court that they delivered it to the person. But the point is, you got to give them notice.

[07:48]

Depending on what the cause is, it might be a notice saying you haven’t paid if they have another issue where they didn’t fix something in the property. And that’s the reason there’s an eviction. You’d have a different kind of notice letting them know what the problem is and giving them a chance to fix it or to remedy that situation. The third step in the eviction process is actually to file the eviction in the local court. So this is getting the paperwork started to begin the process.

[08:10]

And this is after the period of time has expired when you gave them notice. So if they had five days, then that’s five days. That is ten days. You give them ten days and then you go to the court. And this will depend on which court you go to.

[08:21]

But it’s typically a small claims court, what’s also called a magistrate court. So this is kind of a lower level court that handles smaller types of court cases. And you ask the person there at the clerk or the person who works at the desk, how do you begin the court process? So if you’re doing this yourself, sometimes they’ll let you fill out that paperwork. If this is a more complicated case and you’ve hired an attorney, then your attorney will be handling this.

[08:42]

But the main point is you’ll need to have your ducks in a row. You need to have a copy of the rental agreement of the lease. You need to be able to prove who you are. Perhaps like if you have an LLC filing the paperwork, they might ask, who is this person who is LLC? Prove that you’re the owner of the property.

[08:55]

So some, just some paperwork that you want to show them to get the process started, whatever they asked for. But the point is, you want to get the process started and file it with a court and pay your fee, which could be anywhere from $50 to a couple of get that process started. The fourth step in the eviction process is that the tenant receives the legal paperwork. They’re served the legal paperwork to let them know about the court case, but also to let them know about the court date. So in the prior step, whenever you set up the eviction filing, they set up a court date.

[09:24]

And they have to give a certain amount of time. And this is where it varies from state to state between the time that they’re notified of that and then when they have the actual court date. So there might be some waiting time in here. In my case in South Carolina, it’s usually about ten days, but it could, depending on your state could be less, could be more. The fifth step in the eviction process is the actual court date, the time when you get to make your case for taking your property back.

[09:45]

And of course, there’s two possibilities here. You can either win the case or you can lose the case. And if you win the case, you get what’s called an order or a judgment from the judge which says you won the case and you get to take the property back. You’ll get to go to the next step, which I’ll explain in just a moment, to actually take the property back. Now, winning the case could have a couple of different routes to get there.

[10:05]

One route might be that if the tenant just doesn’t respond, if they don’t show up in the court case, then it’s usually just a pretty automatic process and the judge stamps it and you get the property back or you get to go to the next step to take the property back. So that’s one situation. Another situation though, is that if they respond and they argue the case and then you have to prove your case, then you have to go through a little bit more documentation. You have to get your paperwork in order. You have to show your logs of communication and show your letters that you’ve sent them.

[10:32]

And so it’s really important to be organized. The cases where I’ve heard landlords having a problem and maybe even losing their eviction case is typically when they didn’t have their ducks in a row, they weren’t organized, they didn’t have their paperwork, they didn’t have correct copies of their leases. If you’re very organized, if you’re very diligent, if you’ve shown that you’ve been fair and you’ve communicated with the tenant and giving them chances and done exactly what you’re supposed to do based on the legal process, it’s typically a pretty straightforward process. And so that is my recommendation at this step. Make sure you do your homework.

[11:00]

If you have an attorney helping you do this, of course the attorney will ask for that information as well. But you as a landlord can have a process ahead of time that can make it a lot easier for yourself at this step of the process. The 6th step of the eviction process is go into your local sheriff or other law enforcement who’s in charge of this part of the eviction process to schedule a date for actually taking the property back. Before they will schedule that date for you, you have to have the paperwork from the judge, from the prior step. And that paperwork is going to be called different things in different states.

[11:29]

And my state of South Carolina is called a writ of ejectment. In other cases it might be called a writ of possession. But whatever the name of it is, they’re going to have to have that paperwork. And once you show that to them, they are then going to set up a date that they’re going to have to go out to the property with you to observe the process and to make sure that process goes smoothly. Now they also are going to let the tenant know.

[11:50]

And so depending on how long the state requires the sheriff or the law enforcement officer to give the tenant depend on how long that date will take, it could be 24 hours, it could be a few days. Often they give the sheriff discretion on just personal situations if the person needs more time or whatever the case might be. So there’s some flexibility there that you need to be flexible on what that could look like. But the point is you’re setting up a date and you’re preparing for actually taking the property back in the next step. The 7th and final step of the eviction process is where you actually take the property back as a landlord and in some cases have to remove the tenant from the property.

[12:25]

Now I’m going to go back to something I said earlier in the video. This is not a fun, this is not an ideal process for anyone, especially of course, the tenant and their family who have to go through this and experience this on their end. And also I would say any landlord that I’ve known who cares about their tenants and cares about the property doesn’t want to get to this step. So my hope always as a landlord is that we can resolve it earlier in the process, either through a payment plan or through peacefully being able to move out of the process, working together to help them do that. But in some cases it’s just gonna get to this step and you have to go to the point where the sheriff or the law enforcement officer shows up at the property.

[13:00]

And the point I want to make here is that this is not their job to help with all the details of the process. Their job is to make sure the law is followed and make sure that the piece is kept and if necessary, be the one to remove people from the property. So there’s some other things to keep in mind about your role as a landlord is that if there are still possessions in the property, there’s still personal property in the property. Even if they have left, which in most cases the tenant has left the property and maybe they’ve taken most of their stuff in a hurry, there might be a few things left over or a lot of things left over. There’s some additional responsibilities that you have depending on the state you’re in.

[13:35]

They have different laws about what you can, can and can’t do with a personal property. Often there’s some kind of monetary limit where if it’s below a number, like $700 for example, it’s just a few things, a few boxes, a few pieces of paper or a few things that aren’t worth that much. Then they might say you can either throw those away or you can take those or do whatever you want to do. But if there’s a lot of things, if you got TVs and you got desk and you’ve got furniture, then there might be additional requirements either to put the property by the road kind of at a minimum and allow them to come get it at the road or additionally, maybe putting it in storage in a separate place to allow the tenant to have time to come and get that stuff. So you need to do some homework on what your requirements are in your state and you’re going to need to get help to do that.

[14:19]

So you’re going to have to have either your property management company or a moving company, several people to be able to come into the house and move stuff, either to the road or to a separate place to store. It for the tenant and then to be able to clean up everything, to change the locks and to just get it ready to get things moved out. So that is part of the process, definitely an unpleasant part of the process. But in the end, if you’ve gone through those seven steps and you get to this stage, you’re able to get the property back as a landlord, you’re able to get it cleaned up, hopefully fixed up pretty quickly so you can find another tenant.

[14:56]

Now that we’ve gone through the legal steps of an eviction. I want to mention something called a selfhelp eviction, which is first of all, a really bad idea. It’s illegal. It’s where a landlord tries to take into their own hands, taking back the property or evicting a tenant. So this could be perhaps changing the utilities or turning off the utilities on a property if they’re in the landlord’s name, or changing the locks on the front door, or even taking the door off the hinges, or doing anything that would intimidate or try to hassle the tenant before the legal process has taken its course.

[15:26]

This is a bad idea. This is illegal, as I said before. And there’s a message I want to say here to landlords is sometimes you are justified in being angry. Sometimes the tenant, particularly, this is very rare cases, but where they have done things they have not paid on time, they’ve been flagrantly, just like pushing it to the limit. And it’s going to happen if you are in the landlording business long enough.

[15:46]

But you’ve got to take the long road. You’ve got to follow the legal process. In the end, it’s definitely going to be the better step to take. You have to swallow your pride and just understand that in the end this is going to be a lesson. You’re going to chalk it up, you’re going to learn from it, you’re going to do better the next time.

[16:00]

You just want to get to the end in the best way you can legally and then move on and get on with your business and with your life. I hope you found this overview of the eviction process helpful. Of course, there’s going to be a lot of details, a lot of nuance, a lot of different situations that come up in real life. So I love to hear from you in the comments section if you have any questions or additional comments about what I covered in the video today. I also want to encourage you to watch the next video called Tenant Screening 101 for Landlords.

[16:24]

This is an interview with an industry expert called Pam Storm, and we talk about the best practices as a landlord to find a good fit, a good person, a good group of people to move into your property. Who can afford the property, who are going to treat it well, who have a history of doing that, how to do that legally, how to do that ethically, and how to find a good relationship with your tenant. It doesn’t have to always end up in an eviction in a controversy. Most of the relationships I’ve had with tenants and most of the relationships most landlords have with tenants are a winwin where we’re serving one another. And that’s what that video is all about.

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How do you do that? How do you find those tenants? Check that out. There’ll be a link to the video above and also in the video description below. Thank you for listening to the Coach Carson podcast or watching on the Coach Carson YouTube channel.

[17:05]

I’m your host, Chad Carson. You can also call me Coach. And this is a channel all about helping you get out of the financial grind so you can do more of what matters. See you next time. If you like the show, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to my free email newsletter at coachcarson.com/REIToolKit.

[17:21]

In addition to weekly updates, articles and behind the scenes tips from me, my email newsletter subscribers get my real estate investing toolkit, which includes a property closing checklist that I actually use when I buy properties. A real estate deal worksheet a tenant screening criteria, checklist and other spreadsheets and goodies that will help you on your journey to financial independence using real estate. You can get it all for free at coachcarson.com/REIToolKit. I also want to take this time to thank the people behind the scenes who make this podcast possible each and every week. This includes my podcast editor extraordinaire, Michael Nguyen, my amazing virtual assistant, Megan Thompson, my wife Kari, who helps me behind the scenes and is my partner here at Coach Carson.

[18:00]

And of course, thank you to all of you, the listeners of the show who make everything possible. This show exists for you. It exists because of you and I really appreciate you being here for another episode. Everything I’ve shared with you in this episode has been for general education purposes. I have not considered your specific situation or risk.

[18:16]

Before buying your own investments, be sure to consult a financial, real estate and or a legal professional. Until next time, I’m Chad Carson. You can also call me Coach. And this is a show all about helping you get out of the financial grind so you can do more of what matters. See you next time.