eviction help!!! need advice, answers fast. i have 3 kids.

[Benzman66]

Originally Posted by Retiredcoach

Lastly, he/she has avenues available to attach your future wages.

In Pennsylvania, garnishments to satisfy judgments for back rent on a residential lease, and for Pennsylvania taxes, are limited to 10% of net wages provided the garnishment does not cause your salary to fall below the poverty guidelines as set out by the federal government. If it does, the garnishment is further limited. If your earnings are not above the federal poverty guidelines, no garnishment is permitted.

From Pennsylvania Wage Garnishment Law | Nolo.com

[jea6321]

as a landlord, I would NEVER let someone into a unit without the full security deposit and first month's rent.

that being said, if I have a tenant that has proven to not be a hassle, pays on time and is respectful of others and the property, I would have a much easier time being lenient and patient if they fell on hard times. I actually have had this situation with long term tenants and never charged late fees and allowed them to "make it right" even as far as checking their unit for damages early and allowing partial security deposit to be used for final months rent.

You sound like the opposite of this situation and from your comments, I would also file at the magistrate right away. Does your lease have a waiver of tenant/landlord act? if so you can legally be removed within 30 days.

Im not a landlord for fun, its business. Your rent goes to my mortgage, not my pocket.

[OniNoKen]

We have a rental home in Arizona. In July of 2012, our tenants began having troubles paying rent on time. This meant that we were having to make up the difference to get the mortgage payment in on time, which lead to other things being late, etc. They wrote letters that sound very familiar to what the OP wrote. Then in October, they up and left without any notice, payment, and took appliances with them. This left the house vacant in the absolute worse time of year to have a vacancy. Very few people move during the winter. We had to file an insurance claim to get the appliance replaced. That made the third year claim in 5 years on the house. A previous tenant had an unapproved pet in the house that destroyed carpet and dry wall, and appliances were stolen when the property was vacant. As a result, our insurance was dropped, and we had to pay about 2.5x more for a new policy.

The house is underwater, and we were already losing about 350.00 a month with it rented. We were trying to keep our credit rating in good standing, because life, you know? Well, with a tenant going habitually late, then skipping out on the lease, we simply ran out of cash flow. I stream lined everything and it still wasn't enough, so bye bye credit rating. I learned my lesson. Never again. While I would never have let someone in without a full deposit, I will initiate eviction as soon as someone is even a day late. My kindness and consideration has set our family's credit back 4-7 years. That means that if we have to relocate due to work, we probably won't be able to realistically look at buying a home until 2017. The interest rates we'd get on major purchases will add thousands.

[Zhym]

To the OP:

The links that MJ7 posts are very useful. Take a look at this page especially, which outlines the eviction process:

Moderator cut: link removed, please wait with posting links until you have at least 10 posts

In a nutshell, the landlord can't just kick you out if you haven't paid within 10 days of the notice. The landlord has to go to court to schedule a hearing date to ask for an eviction order, and you have to be notified of the hearing date. You (and the landlord) can have a lawyer present at the hearing. If the lease calls for 30-day notice and the landlord did not give you that long, you could raise that at the hearing; I don't know if that would be enough for a judge to rule in your favor or not. If the judge rules for the landlord, the landlord can have a constable give you an "order for possession" no sooner than 15 days after the ruling. The order would say that you can be forcibly removed unless you're out of the premises by a date no less than 15 days after the date of the order.

In short, the soonest a landlord could force you out of the apartment would be 30 days after a hearing has been scheduled, which can only happen after the initial notice period (10 days, according to the notice you got) has expired.

The best way out is to pay all rent that's due if you possibly can. Even if the landlord has started eviction proceedings, you can stop eviction for non-payment of rent by paying the rent due plus court costs, at any time until the constable actually shows up to put you on the street. This assumes that the only reason for eviction is overdue rent. If the landlord is claiming that you breached the lease some other way, the only defense is to convince the judge that you didn't do what the landlord says you did (or that the eviction is retaliation for something else).

A smart landlord will know all this. As you can imagine, the process I describe above is kind of a pain for landlords, so the more reasonable ones would much rather just get the rent that's due. Talk to your landlord to see if you can work something out, but make sure to get any agreement in writing if you do.

I'd recommend talking to someone at Neighborhood Legal Services if you can. I'm not sure whether they handle landlord-tenant issues, but if they don't they should be able to tell you who does.

Moderator cut: link removed, please wait with posting links until you have at least 10 posts

Good luck.

[mangmang]

Originally Posted by trishwag03

I know I can be evicted. That wasn't my question. My question was shouldn't it be thirty days because that's what my lease says. We went from having a very good amount of money to basically none. I have always paid my rent in the 15 years I've been renting. This has never happened before. Its nice to see you ask a question and get people being rude like they know you. I'm sorry I asked. Just trying to see why my lease says 30 days to make it right. Don't you have to follow the lease?

I agree that the first two responses you received in this thread were rude and preachy. The absolute last thing you need right now, and the most useless thing anyone could give you, is a condescending lecture. @Hopes, I'm surprised at you because you're usually a kind, helpful poster in this forum.

[mangmang]

I'm sure the OP appreciates that being a LL is a business, not a charity, but whatever would possess you folks to fingerwag at someone who is in dire need of advice? Have some good taste and some sense.

*And my admiration to the landlords and tenants who provided helpful perspective and advice.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by mangmang

@Hopes, I'm surprised at you because you're usually a kind, helpful poster in this forum.

Sometimes the most helpful advice isn't kind.

[mangmang]

Sometimes unkind advice isn't helpful :P

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Sometimes the most helpful advice isn't kind.

True, but telling somebody with lung cancer that smoking is bad for them isn't useful.

[LibertyandJusticeforAll]

Every eviction case will go to court that is how you are evicted, any landlord can TRY to evict based on the lease and or other reasons but they still need to show cause and explain the reasons to the eviction giving you a chance to defend yourself. The lease is the contract and will be based on how or why you are evicted. But if the landlord shows he is willing to take late payments with late fees he has already set up case that he should take late rent again. Late rent does not always mean a landlord can evict you. But most of the law protects the landlord and his property.