A lot of my friends in the real estate industry are always wondering how to evict somebody who
doesn't pay rent because the truth of the matter is it's undesirable, nobody wants to do it
but every now and then, we have to evict a tenant, but how do we do it? Let's find out.
I love owning rental property, I love adding value to tenants, I love working with property managers,
I love building wealth, I love the whole process. But there is something I don't necessarily like
and that's evicting somebody. I'd never like to kick somebody out of a property
because most of the time, people don't want to be evicted and they certainly don't want to be
missing paying their bills. But in this video, I'm going to walk you through how to evict somebody
that doesn't pay rent because somebody not paying rent can cost you thousands and thousands
of dollars. But stick around to the end because I'm going to give you a tip at the end that can make
sure you actually recover your lost rent. Let's go. We know that evicting somebody is frustrating for
everyone. I want to walk you through 5 tips to evicting somebody who isn't paying rent. The very
first tip is to reach out multiple times to your tenant. Don't just reach out once and if they don't
pay, you go dark and you start the eviction process. While we want to start the eviction process
early, I want to be contacting them literally every single day because that gives them a chance to
respond so that we can set up a plan. Let me tell you something I learned the hard way, Evicting
somebody is a lot more expensive than working with somebody and getting them on a track in order to
pay. So, our goal in reaching out to them is to help get them back on track and create a solution.
Sometimes that means helping them fill out the assistance paperwork and getting all of that
filed and turned in so they can get assistance to pay rent. Other times, that's simply asking what's
going on, maybe they just lost a job, maybe we can connect them with new employment, maybe we can help
connect them with a headhunter or somebody who can place them, but our job as landlords and property
managers is we are problem solvers. My goal is not to evict anybody, my goal is to create a solution
so I don't have to evict anybody. But the truth is sometimes you have to, but that starts with
multiple points of communication to give them the opportunity to respond and let you know what's
going on. If they are ghosting you, you want to use every point of communication that you
have available. And this is a side note on the application, make sure you get 3 points of
communication on every application, that's phone number and email so you can call, text and email
at any given time. You obviously already have their address so you can do a physical show up but,
distant communication, we want that phone number and email so that we can reach out 3 different
ways in seeking to consistently communicate and figure out what's going on so we can either create
a solution or move forward with the eviction process. The 2nd thing you want to do when
you finally do get in touch with them and you talk to them, you want to lay out the eviction process
and help them see the pain and going through it. You want to let them know that this will
blow up their credit and it will significantly decrease making it really hard to get another unit.
Most property owners or property managers don't want to rent to somebody that's gone through an
eviction. So, if they go through an eviction, they're going to have a really hard time getting another
place. The other thing you want to let them know is there's actually legal ways for you to garnish
their wages for unpaid rent. Helping tenants see the pain of going through an eviction and the real
consequence of that reality often will help them get a little more resourceful and because there is
assistant programs we can help get them on, it will encourage them to take that help in order to get
their rent paid. Because again, my goal in eviction process is to keep the tenant and help them, not
just evict them because evicting costs us way more money. But sometimes, if a tenant's never been
evicted, they don't really know the consequence or pain. They just think that when it's finally
time, they move out. It's not true, there's a lot of fallout from an eviction in somebody's life
and we don't want to see them go through that so we want to make sure we clearly paint the pain so
we can create incentive to move towards figuring out a solution. Because I found people tend to get
resourceful when they need to, so often, when they hear all of the pain of going through an eviction,
they think about maybe borrowing money from a friend, borrowing money from a parent, somebody
that can help them get their rent paid so that they can continue to stay in that unit and then
maybe even put in a notice that they want to move out so they're not necessarily evicted but they're
still out of the unit. After you've communicated with them multiple times, you've laid out the pain
and they're still not paying, it's time to serve the 10-day eviction notice. It's time to serve the
paperwork that says if this isn't rectified within 10 days, then we're going to move forward with the
eviction process. And 2 things come up in that 10 days. If they're not paying, not only do they need
to pay the rent, they need to pay the late fees or you can still move forward with the eviction.
Because an unpaid late fee that was in the lease is still considered unpaid rent. But let them know
as you serve that 10-day notice that if they will pay this amount by this date, this goes away and
it's as if this never happened. Because again, the point is to keep the tenant so I want to lay out
for them, "Hey, if you pay this, this goes away. You don't have to go through this painful process of
an eviction." And with their 10-day notice, remember, there's not just one reason to evict somebody. You
can evict somebody if any point of the contract is not upheld. If the point is that they mow the grass
and the grass has gotten 10 inches long and you've served them a notice, "You need to get the grass
mowed" and they're not doing that, an eviction can happen for any reason the contract's not upheld.
In that case, I'd pay somebody to have go mow the grass and I'd back-charge the tenant but if
they don't pay that, then again, that's another reason you could evict somebody because again,
we've created a contract, we've both agreed, I'm holding up my end, as long as you hold up your end,
we're all good but if they start breaking and breaching the contract, then it's means for an
eviction. Before I get on to the next tip, if you know somebody that's going through an eviction
as a property owner, make sure you share this video with them so they understand how to evict somebody,
the process to evict somebody, why you can evict somebody so that it limits their pain and they
can get it done quicker. The 4th thing you're going to do in an eviction after you've served the
10-day notice and they didn't rectify the issue is get a court date. You're going to go down to your
courthouse, they're going to set a date in which you and the tenant will go before the judge in
order to rectify the issue. Many times, the tenant won't even show up because they know they don't
have a leg to stand on because they've agreed to pay rent and they're not. Often, the tenant won't
show up however, if the tenant does show up, you simply say, you simply show the lease, the contract,
say let the judge know they're not paying rent, let them know all of the communication you've sought
to do and show that you've been seeking to work with them. Most of the time the judge just rules
in your favor, you get your unit back and they get a 10-day notice to move out of your property.
The 5th thing you want to do if you're going to evict somebody is please get an eviction attorney.
Get somebody that knows what they're doing. I went through an eviction by myself years ago. When I
first owned just a few properties, I went through the process by myself and then I did it with an
attorney, oh my goodness, what a difference. When I'm doing everything myself and I have to file with
the court, I have to do this and I'm not a lawyer, I don't do this day-in, day-out. I buy properties so I
want to let them do what they do well. Lawyers know the in's and out's of the law, they know when things
need to be served, they know what documentation is needed in order to make sure you're ruled in your
favor. Attorneys just know what they're doing so I bring on an eviction attorney every time we do
an eviction and it costs anywhere from 3 to $600 depending on your state and
depending on the county in which you're seeking to evict. But please do yourself a favor, don't
evict anybody without an attorney. I'm telling you, it's a big mistake to do that. But one of
the things we all deal with when somebody finally does get evicted and moved out is man, we just had
2 or 4 months of unpaid rent. we're shooting this in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, some
of you might have a year's worth of unpaid rent. Well, how do we recoup all that expense when we
can't collect rent? On every application you have, make sure you collect the social security number
because when you have a social security number, you can go after them and garnish their wages after
they leave their property. My property manager has this all the time. 2 or 3 years later,
all of a sudden a check will show up, they'll read that check, look at it and it's for somebody that
lived in a unit 2 or 3 years ago but the process worked itself out and they were able
to garnish the wages and give that rent back. You won't usually get a 100% of it
because the attorney working to get that rent will take a percentage, your manager will take a
percentage for managing that process but you will get some of it back. But, on your application, make
sure you have that social security number because if you don't, you really can't do that. I want to
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