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I don't know why I think of these, but out of curiosity, what if you have a lease with a tenant and for one reason or another they are incarcerated for a period of 2 or more months during the term of your lease.
As the landlord, I'd be loosing out on rent while the tenant is in jail, so do I have an obligation to keep the place until they get out? Do I evict them if they don't pay for next month's rent?
If no one is paying the rent for them, and no one is taking care of the apartment for the tenant, then the apartment is abandond. You can treat it by state law as an abandond. Each state is different, check your local laws.
Contact the Landlord/Tenant court in your county regarding laws on this before you do anything drastic. You should have placed a clause or addendum regarding this in your lease.
We've only had this happen once, and the tenant had his grandma come move his stuff out, so we didn't have to deal with it.
However, we have in our lease that if the tenant is convicted of a felony, it is grounds for immediate 3 day eviction. I think when you show up at court for your eviction hearing, if the tenant is in jail for a prolonged period, the courts would grant you immediate approval to hire the sheriff to move them out.
That is an expensive process though. Expect $1500+. Some areas also have a waiting list for the sheriff.
Anyone can pay the rent on their behalf...family, friends, strangers off the street..but it goes beyond rent. Who is going to check on the unit and make sure the utilities are paid? I believe that in this case, the landlord would have a right to enter the unit to make sure it's ok (check on pets, check on utilities, etc).
the landlord can either evict for non payment, take the payment from whomever is willing pay it (as well as utilities) and make periodic checks on the unit, or do nothing and wait/hope they will get paid when the tenant is released.
Contact the tenant at the jail and see if he will sign a release to return possession to the landlord and give a written permission to have a designated person come and retrieve his stuff.
Maybe relatives will pay his rent for him. If it is only 2 months, maybe he has sufficient savings to pay the rent.
If the rent doesn't get paid, you evict him. He's easy to find to serve the papers on and the sheriff will bring him to the eviction hearing in handcuffs.
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