Unfortunately some landlord/tenant situations don’t go as well as everyone would hope, in fact there are people who routinely take advantage of landlords by refusing to leave the premises after they’ve broken the rules, failed to make payments, and been asked to leave by the landlord. If you find your self in this situation you will have to take legal measures to remove a tenant from your property.

Your first step is serving the process is serving the tenant with an unconditional quit notice, this lets them know they have to vacate the premises in a specified amount of time and they have no chance of rectifying the situation. Check with your state or local laws to see how long the tenant has after notification to vacate.

If the tenant still won’t leave then you need to move ahead with eviction proceedings. Again, you’ll have to check with your state and local laws or look for a landlord organization and they should have packages of information that will help you with the process and provide you with the appropriate paperwork. Make sure you follow every step to the letter because not doing so may delay the process.

Each court is different but yours will assign a trial date at which time you’re expected to show up with all of your evidence. If you win the case your tenant will be given some time to gather their belongings and leave, this can be several days or several weeks.

If the tenant has still not left the property at the prescribed time then you’ll have to call your local police and tell them that you need a tenant forcibly evicted, at which point they will come over and escort the tenants off the premises.

If this is new to you, you may want to hire a lawyer who is well versed in tenant law and has handled this sort of case before.

Constructive Eviction can actually be a good thing for a tenant unlike a traditional eviction which can be quite traumatic and leave you stranded without anywhere to go. Constructive Eviction is when the landlord has rented someone a place that is so substandard or unlivable that you are legally considered evicted and the lease no longer applies, leaving you free to move without further obligation.

Some common Constructive Evictions include a landlord that turns off the heat or water or if there’s an environmental health hazard that is not property attended to. In these situations tenants are able to move without fear of legal repercussions, but each instance should be documented as well as your attempts to inform the landlord of the problem and his or her attempts to remedy it, if any were made.

Quite often you’ll hear small claims cases on court television where one tenant changes the locks on another tenant, this too is a form of Constructive Eviction which will leave the remaining tenant entirely responsible for any rent bills and typically will get sued for this action.

If you’re a landlord its important to take care of any complaints your tenants bring to your attention, especially health hazards. And if you have a troublesome tenant it may be tempting to have the heat and water shut off but as soon as you do that you lose your legal upper hand. If you’re a tenant, know that you have the right to leave if your landlord performs a Constructive Eviction and you are no longer tied to the lease.

One of the most common lawsuits that landlords find placed against them by tenants is fair housing disputes. There are some steps you can take as a landlord to try to avoid a fair housing lawsuit from your tenants and the first ones start before you even have a tenant.

Screening

Every person who responds to your vacancy needs to be treated in exactly the same manner. This means that you need to have the same application and screening process for everyone, no matter what their age, race, gender, etc. If you discover a good business reason not to rent to someone during the screening process it’s a good idea to note these on the application.

Know the Law

You should become familiar with all laws relating to fair housing whether they’re federal or local laws. If you happen to have a staff or property management company its important that they also understand all of the rules related to fair housing for your region.

Stay the Course

It seems obvious that all tenants should be treated equally but you may be tempted to give someone a break based on their situation but by doing this you’re simply setting yourself up for future discrimination suits from other tenants. So stay the course and treat all tenants the same.

Even if you do everything right it’s not a guarantee that you won’t be sued so keep accurate records to prove your case in court.