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Hi, I own a few properties in Reading, PA. When I bought one of them in October 2016, I "inherited" a tenant who had been living there for 20+ years, paying rent which was completely out of line with the rest of the market. Ever since I purchased the property, I have made numerous improvements to it, renovating the whole entrance foyer, communal staircase, etc., and replaced this tenant's old water heater with a brand new tankless gas heater.
I increased this tenant's rent in July 2017 - she signed the new lease then. I increased it again in July 2018 - I sent her a notice of it in May, which she received. Alas, she never signed that new lease and has ever since continued to pay her OLD rent. That said, on numerous prior occasions, she made it clear she has the money - and she goes to spend 3-4 months each summer with her daughter in Europe.
I have by now sent her 4 certified mail letters reminding her of the new rent - all of which she has refused to accept. The last letter I sent, in December, was a 30-day notice to quit, because I had read that if she continues to pay rent, but it's not the correct rent, I should send a 30-, not 10-day notice. I sent that letter both via certified mail and regular mail, to ensure she actually read its contents. I also called her last week and left a VM.
Now, as I mentioned in that December letter, her November/December rent check was not only an incorrect amount, but it was incorrectly filled out (did not spell the actual check amount), so no bank was able to cash it. She now also failed to send in any rent in January 2019. So now she owes 3 months' rent, plus late fees, plus all the rent difference since July.
I am ready to proceed with eviction - alas, at this point I am so sick of having to remember to remind her to pay correct rent - or pay rent at all - that I actually would really like her out of the property. Alas, she's been living there for 20+ years, so while I'm sure she thinks this strategy of avoiding my letters and phone calls will let her live there at the old rent forever... she'll no doubt pay up her debt once eviction starts and I'll still be stuck with an unresponsive tenant, having paid $500 for an eviction lawyer (which, based on my past experience, the judge in Reading, PA rarely awards to the landlord).
My question - sorry for the long intro - is: how do I best proceed? 1) Do I have to send a 10-day notice to quit, since circumstances have changed since my December letter (she is now not paying rent at all)? If so, should I have it hand-delivered to her? 2) Or should I sent her a termination of lease letter? 3) Or can I combine those two in one letter? 4) Or should I file for eviction (she'll likely pay up) and then make it clear that if she's ever late again, I will terminate her lease effective immediately? Can I do something like that? Basically, while I'd really like to get my money back, I also really want to not have to deal with this tenant. Most of my other tenants are communicative and I don't want to have to be tracking this one down and having to figure out what to do if she doesn't accept my letters or pick up my calls.
Look at his the lease is written as far as correspondence. Send the rent raise letter in the described fashion. You can send the communication also in whatever manner you and the tenant have been communicating. There is nothing to track down. The tenants address of residence is clearly in the lease. As long as you send the correspondence there the court isn’t gonna argue that. What you need to do is send a notice that the rent is being raised. If she doesn’t accept the letter that’s fine it will simply come back to you. Keep it unopened showing you sent it and she refused it.
Now
Did you accept the lesser rent payment? So then the rent is simply not paid in full. You have the choice of
Depositing it and ask or go to court for the additional owed amount.
Or
Do not deposit it, return it on the grounds the rent amount is wrong send 3 day notice of pay rent or quit, and start eviction as unpaid rent.
You would need to follow your state laws as in the xx day and notices. If you don’t know your laws you can read up and diy or hire a eviction lawyer.
We have learned the hard way that the minute a tenant starts to act squirrelly, that is the time to start the eviction. It always only gets worse.
You should have served her the minute she was late on the INCREASE, for non-payment of rent. That would have gotten her attention. Now you're 3 months in the hole. And you'll never see that money.
If you don't know how to do this yourself, get a lawyer to do it for you. The marshalls who serve eviction notices can tell you who handles a lot of evictions.
when we were taking the apartment back for my son from a tenant with no lease we had to use a process server to serve notice of our intention .
she never acknowledged the fact we told her she had to leave . if she did not leave would have had to evict her . luckily we went to the apartment the day she was supposed to be out and she was loading up a truck .
What does the lease say about notices? We wouldn't go through a server, we do certified mail, regular mail, and post it to the door. We've never had any issues (PA may be stricter).
Also, what does the lease say about holdover? If she never signed a new lease, but stayed, she may owe for an automatically increased rent (sometimes 125% of normal rent pro-rated per day). You need to figure this out before you file the eviction so that it is included. This alone may be all she needs to hear to agree to the new rate and happily pay the increase retroactively.
This is why we have our leases automatically renew, the people agree to the increase as part of moving in, so there are no games to play or extra steps to take each year.
here in nyc our lawyer told us to be 100% compliant we needed to use a process server . that is the only way to make sure they can't claim in court someone else signed for it and it wasn't them or even if they avoid signing at all . what if they are not home or pretend not to be home ?
They don’t have to sign for a certified letter nor can you prove what was in the envelope .
once the process server puts it under the door it is deemed served -period . they don't even have to be home . Plus what the process server said he served is what was served .
This is why we use lawyers and not go by what we think .
Last edited by mathjak107; 01-21-2019 at 11:39 AM..
Some of you on the LL side are pretty harsh to someone just looking for advice.
OP. The advice on this forum is worth what you’ve paid for. Diddly squat.
Sounds like you’re going to need an attorney’s help to get this tenant out.
Harsh? Not really.
The rental business is loaded to the hills with places a landlord can screw up and cost himself a lot of time and money. The eviction process is the worst area. I've seen cases dismissed with prejudice for the smallest of things. With that dismissal goes the amount of rent owed, effectively resetting the past due balance to zero.
Landlording is not conducive to learning on the fly. While some advice may sound harsh, it's just the truth. Hearing the truth isnt always pretty.
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