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So here's the situation. We relocated to WI from FL (Ocala) in October 2010 and a tenant has been living in the home since. He is a friend from DH's work down there. We just sold our business up here and DH will be going back to his old job in Ocala and the plan was to go back to our house at the end of June/July 1. The written lease does not end until November. DH called and spoke with the tenant about 6 weeks ago and told him the situation and he said he would start looking for another place, although he says it would be a financial hardship to move right now.
We assumed he was looking, saving up, etc., and DH called today to touch base and the tenant says he has not told his wife, nor has he told his brother (who is living there unauthorized) and they cannot afford to move until next year when they get their taxes! Mind you, the lease is up in November no matter what, so not sure what he expects to do at that point since apparently he has not even thought about it.
He said he would give us phone numbers to call for a place for us to rent, and DH said we can't afford to rent another place for 6 months after we move since we are expecting our 2nd child in August and now have to have a 3 bedroom place to live (it would cost us about $300-$400 more than he is paying us in rent, plus we are in the negative each month with him paying less than our mortgage, ~$200 there). So that is cost-prohibitive for us, not to mention moving with a young baby, uprooting our toddler AGAIN, paying a premium for the shorter lease term, etc. We feel he is making excuses since they had wanted to buy the house down the road and probably don't want to leave. Let me also add that we know this person reduces his hours at work when his wife gets a raise so his son's SSI is not reduced (he has cerebral palsy but does not require any ADA accommodations) and he does not claim his tips for the same reason. I don't mention this for ethical reasons but just so you can see that there is plenty of opportunity for them to be able to afford a move across town.
Lastly, I know they have broken the lease on several fronts. One, his brother is not supposed to be living there. We were told at the beginning that it was temporary, and I know he was still there six months after the lease began but all his stuff was in boxes and it did look to me as if he wouldn't be in there too much longer. Now we are finding out that he is still living there, when the lease is for two adults and one child, with the lease being signed by the tenant and his wife only. Second, I understand he has someone else staying there for a few months at the beginning of the year, and this person apparently has a cat since I saw a litter box in the bathroom when I was there during that same visit I mentioned. The person is not currently there but I do believe he comes every year since this is what he used to do before the tenant moved in to our house. The lease states no pets. But I do not have evidence of the cat.
Other small things include not taking care of the yard as is required in the lease and having a satellite dish. Not sure on the last one, but in the lease it states it cannot be attached to the building and it might be just on a stand in the yard, I'd have to see it again to know. He has been a few days late on rent a few times and we have never charged a late fee even though that's in the lease, too. I feel we've been pretty lenient with them.
ANYWAY, sorry for the length but I wanted to give as many details as possible. We are wondering if we are able to evict since we need to go back to live in the house; it looks like we would be able to according to FL law but it's always confusing to read various things online. And if we are not able to evict for that reason, do we have any leg to stand on with the other items? It seems they are all easily curable and I honestly think he would tell his brother to leave just to avoid having to move right now. He may even pull something about his son being disabled but honestly the kid does not need any special accommodations and even stairs probably do not pose a problem for him at this point, so it's not like it would be some kind of undue hardship to move to a new place with him.
DH has to work with this person after we move so we would like to not have to go through this, and with all the fees for eviction, we'd have to sue him plus for any damages there are in the house after we see how it looks now (haven't seen the interior for two years now). It's just going to be awkward, and I don't want to try to evict him to get possession just to have it backfire. I was hoping someone here might be familiar with this kind of situation and give some advice. I'm going to call an attorney Monday to find out the best course of action but was curious to see if anyone here might know. TIA
Here is the only part of the post that really matters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by andrea3821
The written lease does not end until November.
If he has the lease until November, your hands are pretty much tied. You said you had read that you should be able to evict him if you need to occupy the house. I am unfamiliar with any such provision of Florida law and even checked Chapter 83 of the Florida Statutes, specifically 83.20 (causes for removal of tenants) and found nothing. If you have a link, I'll take a look at it.
To be able to use his breaches of the rental agreement as a backdoor means to evict him would require you to verify that the breaches are currently happening, send the required notices, and then do the followup. The trouble here is that with the things you know about (such as the brother living there) the fact that you knew about it for so long and did nothing could be used as argument for your implied consent.
If you do have to use the courts for the eviction, just understand that you'll likely never get any money out of him. The SSI income cannot be touched and he almost certainly qualifies for the head of household exemption. In the end, you'll have wasted a $1000 or so (maybe more) just to get the house back early.
He has a legal lease valid until November, he's not moving until November. Just because you're moving back into the home doesn't mean you can kick him out.
Read the Florida landlord/tenant handbook or talk to a lawyer; but you're not going to get him out before November, unless you have grounds to evict him. Based on what you're saying, you don't have ground to evict this tenant.
I suggest you offer this tenant a buy-out...basically, pay him to leave. He's not a total stranger, he works with your dh and unless your dh miserable at work...you'll do everything in your power to make this go smoothly.
But step one, read the law, talk to a lawyer, and get out of the landlord biz.
I'd also recommend buying him out. He has a lease. That means he "owns" the property until it ends or he breaches the contract. Yes, you could possibly evict him for breach of the contract (extra adult, cat), but if you've known about it all this time, I'd also be afraid that might not work, as Bosco states. At best you might get him evicted but have an enemy where hubby works and find your home trashed.
Buy him out of the lease if possible. It'll cost you an extra $1500-$2400 to rent plus extra moving expenses, so I'd offer that as a bonus, if the house is left in good repair. If you can't buy him out, you'll probably be renting. Remember, that lease does mean it's the renter's property until November, just as if you'd sold the house and transferred the title. The only other option is eviction for breach of contract. That's iffy and could cost you nearly as much in attorney fees as a friendly buy-out, and you might lose the case and still be renting.
Look at this from the renter's standpoint. He owns a legal lease. Why should he take a financial beating to move before the lease expires? (He shouldn't.)
You allowed the issues in his breaking the lease go on too long to use it as an eviction tool. Since your dh needs to maintain a relationship, you need to step carefully. A buy out is about all you have. Make it worth his while to move. Offer a return of the deposit, a months rent and moving costs. It may sound expensive to you, but it is less than legal fees and renting another place for 6 months.
No need for rudeness. It was not the plan to be in the "landlord biz," we had to relocate and we are underwater with that house and had no choice but to rent it out.
NOW, I appreciate the responses and that's why I posted here, b/c I had seen conflicted info online and much of it may not even apply to Florida.
Another thing to add is that he gave us this sob story about not being able to afford a lot since they were not paying much in rent before they moved to our place, disabled son, yada yada, so we let him rent it for less than market rate. To our knowledge, the brother was indeed there temporarily, the last I saw, he was living in the living room with boxes and a bed, and that's it. There was no reason for me to think he would not be moving out. Now that we know he has been there the entire time, WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION, we feel they misrepresented the situation and we should not have allowed them to pay below market rent. There is no reason three working adults should have trouble paying $900 a month, or even the $700 they pay now, and we've had sob stories about them living paycheck to paycheck plenty of times when they were late on the rent. It is NOT to his financial detriment for them to move as they choose to spend their money on other things like cigarettes and then cry about not having necessities, and they are going to be SOL come November when they legally have to get out if he really thinks they can't afford it till tax time, which IMO is a ridiculous assertion to begin with.
This is going to leave US homeless b/c he agreed a month and a half ago that he WOULD move out, and then broke that verbal agreement. Now I'm not sure we even can find a place and negotiate a short-term lease in that amount of time. We have a baby coming in August and a toddler who will turn two shortly after that. What are we supposed to do?? Is it possible for us to give him a 7 day notice for the brother to get out OR they can pay $900 a month market rate for rent since the unauthorized person was misrepresented and therefore removes any kind of discount they were getting for their so-called financial struggles? I don't know how to word it without sounding like an a-hole but it's clear we have been taken advantage of and this will put us in a worse situation than it would put them if we have to find temporary (and extremely expensive) housing with a brand new baby. He may very well get his brother out, but I'm not sure what he would do and apparently they can't afford $900 a month so the only alternative is for them all to leave.
Or maybe I'm just so mad that he would try to pull this now and also the sob story for so long, I can't even think straight.
You allowed the issues in his breaking the lease go on too long to use it as an eviction tool. Since your dh needs to maintain a relationship, you need to step carefully. A buy out is about all you have. Make it worth his while to move. Offer a return of the deposit, a months rent and moving costs. It may sound expensive to you, but it is less than legal fees and renting another place for 6 months.
This is what I was thinking. I was up all night thinking about it, literally, I did not sleep till 7am. He didn't pay a deposit, but I was thinking if he's claiming financial hardship for moving, we could give him like $1000 or so to take care of part of the first/last/deposit if the new landlord wants all that (and probably does since they don't care about their credit) but not gift it to him, have him pay it back over time. I KNOW we likely would not collect it all but at this point, based on what you guys are saying, it is probably our cheapest option and the least hassle on our end. They all have trucks so they can move with no problem (no Uhaul rental needed) and the new place would probably be within 10 minutes of our house, so the actual moving expenses would be minimal. Just the first/last/deposit is what he's struggling with.
Verbal agreements are not worth the paper they are printed on.
I'm not seeing how you are being taken advantage of. If you signed a writte lease that he can stay until November, that is binding. It doesn't matter how a landlord and tenant arrive at a rental rate. As long as both parties sign the lease, both parties are bound by it. I am not familiar with Florida law but I would be hard pressed to come up with a justification for trying to raise rent during an initial year's lease.
I'm sorry you are going through this but the law treats novice landlords the same as it does experienced landlords.
Like other posters have said, if you can buy him out that is going to be the path that is least expensive and has the least hassle.
Look at this from the renter's standpoint. He owns a legal lease. Why should he take a financial beating to move before the lease expires? (He shouldn't.)
I'm looking at it from him point of view, too. We have bent over backward to allow them to be in that house and let a lot of things slide over the past almost three years. That is our fault and I take responsibility for that. He would not take a financial beating to move, though, he just has to come up with a deposit, that's the only thing really that would be extra, and that is expected when you change residences. He did not pay us a deposit b/c of the aforementioned sob story.
Who is worse off in this situation:
-the tenant, who has THREE MONTHS' notice that they would have to move, ending their lease only four months early, and it was only renewed in the first place (it was month to month) b/c we had to have documentation when we refinanced late last year. He said he didn't care which way we put it in the lease so I just put it for another year and now they are taking advantage of that. Yes, I know, stupid me.
-my family, who is already driving 1200 miles to get back to Florida, I will be 34 weeks pregnant at the time, having to pay a premium to find short-term housing if we can even find something at all, set up a nursery and get things settled for our toddler, then after they vacate when the lease is up, somehow I will have to find the time to get it cleaned up and ready for us to move back in while managing a 2.5 month old as well as a 2 y/o, rent another moving truck to move back and then get everything resettled in the nursery and also for our toddler, again, with two kids in tow instead of one
I mean honestly, who is worse off in this situation? Is it very possible that we will not be able to pay the mortgage if we have that much extra out of pocket each month just b/c they don't feel like moving yet (and that's honest to God what I believe is the truth, it is not a financial issue). Landlord/tenant relationship aside, he is DH's co-worker and we are friendly outside of work at times as well. You'd think he would have some consideration for the situation at hand. It's not reasonable to expect us to do that much moving around with a newborn when we have given them three months to get it figured out, which is more than generous, and he has now wasted half of that by not even telling his wife. I'm thinking of calling her up and telling her what's going on since as a tenant, she SHOULD know anyway. Maybe she can talk some sense into him. Perhaps I'm more offended by this on a personal level than a business level. LESSON LEARNED!!!
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Perhaps I'm more offended by this on a personal level than a business level. LESSON LEARNED!!!
