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My apartment is in NJ. The lease with my tenant will be expired on 1/31/13, I have sent her an email on 11/15/12 stated that I will not renewing the lease and asked her to vacate the place by that date. She didnt respond to the email (I thought that was okay as the email is a notification) and as the date is getting closer I call my tenant try to arrange a mutual date to do the inspection but she nevers pick up the phone or return any of my email and phone calls. After I read several post on this site, I realized I have to send certified mail to her about not renewing the lease so I did send the certified mail today 1/7/13.
Now my questions... 1) can I still ask her to move on 1/31/13? 2) now she doesnt pick up or responds to any of my phone and email, should I go to the apart directly? 3) what if she doesnt pick up the certified mail?
I'm very upset as I dont have a place to stay after 1/31/13 and i dont know how to deal with her and this suitation. Can you please give me some recommendation?
My apartment is in NJ. The lease with my tenant will be expired on 1/31/13, I have sent her an email on 11/15/12 stated that I will not renewing the lease and asked her to vacate the place by that date. She didnt respond to the email (I thought that was okay as the email is a notification) and as the date is getting closer I call my tenant try to arrange a mutual date to do the inspection but she nevers pick up the phone or return any of my email and phone calls. After I read several post on this site, I realized I have to send certified mail to her about not renewing the lease so I did send the certified mail today 1/7/13.
Now my questions... 1) can I still ask her to move on 1/31/13? 2) now she doesnt pick up or responds to any of my phone and email, should I go to the apart directly? 3) what if she doesnt pick up the certified mail?
I'm very upset as I dont have a place to stay after 1/31/13 and i dont know how to deal with her and this suitation. Can you please give me some recommendation?
PS, she pays rent on time every month.
Thank YOU!!!
You can REQUEST that she moves out on 1/31/13, but she does not have to. As you now know, email is not considered a notice. You need to give 30 days notice, so she would have 30 days from the time that the certified mail is delivered. You can sweeten the deal by offering to pay her to move out sooner, but you cannot compel her to leave.
Do you live close to the apartment? Did she sent rent for January? I would be a little concerned about her vacating. You can't just call the cops on day 31 to kick her out - you would need to file for an eviction which can be timely and expensive. If she is unresponsive, I would absolutely go to the apartment and talk to her in person.
In the future, I would avoid being a landlord unless you know the law. Email not counting as a notice is landlording 101, and it's even more precarious that it is now January and you have not heard from her.
Consider yourself lucky... in my state, my landlord needs to give me a full rental period's notice. That means that if he asked me to leave on January 1, I'd have until Feb 28 to vacate.
My apartment is in NJ. The lease with my tenant will be expired on 1/31/13, I have sent her an email on 11/15/12 stated that I will not renewing the lease and asked her to vacate the place by that date. She didnt respond to the email (I thought that was okay as the email is a notification) and as the date is getting closer I call my tenant try to arrange a mutual date to do the inspection but she nevers pick up the phone or return any of my email and phone calls. After I read several post on this site, I realized I have to send certified mail to her about not renewing the lease so I did send the certified mail today 1/7/13.
Now my questions... 1) can I still ask her to move on 1/31/13? 2) now she doesnt pick up or responds to any of my phone and email, should I go to the apart directly? 3) what if she doesnt pick up the certified mail?
I'm very upset as I dont have a place to stay after 1/31/13 and i dont know how to deal with her and this suitation. Can you please give me some recommendation?
PS, she pays rent on time every month.
Thank YOU!!!
There is so much wrong here its not even funny..
does the lease auto-renew for another year or does it go month-to-month?
If it renews for a year, I guess you gotta see what the lease says about notice, typically 60 days, and start counting from 1/7/13 + 60 as a decent date for your tenant to leave the property. If they do not, then you've gotta move to evict, and in NJ that can be a total nightmare.
If the lease turns into month to month, I guess you are counting 30 days from the 1/7/13 date. At which point, if they don't leave, then you gotta move to evict, and again, that could be a nightmare.
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3) what if she doesnt pick up the certified mail?
Then your notice letter will be mailed back to sender, you would then present that in eviction court to prove that you did send the notice. DO NOT TAMPER WITH THIS LETTER. DO NOT OPEN IT OR MESS WITH IT IN ANY WAY.
I think you should hire a lawyer, or at least read a book or two to educate yourself about the fact that being a responsible landlord goes much farther than just cashing in that check at the end of the month. The tenant is avoiding you, sure, but you got yourself into this mess because you did not do proper research on how to go about renting property.
Does your lease contain a clause related to renewing the lease (usually around Clause 25 in a standard agreement)? If there is no such clause in your lease then you must abide by NJ state landlord tenant laws which you'll probably find linked in the first "sticky" on this page. Unless you've given the tenant sufficient notice of your intention of taking back the property, the lease will become a month to month as of 1/31/13 and you will have to give your tenant 30 days written notice. Therefore, if all else fails, you now won't be able to retake possession of your property until the end of February.
You have a problem in that you received no acknowledgement of your email in November. This is why a return receipt certified letter is preferred. Once you send that letter, you're covered. If the party to whom it's addressed refuses to accept it, the letter is sent back to you. You retain it, unopened, as proof that delivery was attempted and recorded. In the case of your email, your tenant can simply deny that she received it.
If you think that she's deliberately avoiding you then I see no harm in going to the apartment and nicely asking her if she's received your messages. If she says no then you know what you have to do. Do read NJ landlord tenant laws to review your options.
Do you own the property or is this a sublease agreement? I'm not sure of the technicalities involved in subleasing and whether or not you're bound to disclose any difficulties to the landlord proper. If it is a sublease then I'm sure somebody else could help with that. Good luck.
My apartment is in NJ. The lease with my tenant will be expired on 1/31/13, I have sent her an email on 11/15/12 stated that I will not renewing the lease and asked her to vacate the place by that date. She didnt respond to the email (I thought that was okay as the email is a notification) and as the date is getting closer I call my tenant try to arrange a mutual date to do the inspection but she nevers pick up the phone or return any of my email and phone calls. After I read several post on this site, I realized I have to send certified mail to her about not renewing the lease so I did send the certified mail today 1/7/13.
Now my questions... 1) can I still ask her to move on 1/31/13? 2) now she doesnt pick up or responds to any of my phone and email, should I go to the apart directly? 3) what if she doesnt pick up the certified mail?
I'm very upset as I dont have a place to stay after 1/31/13 and i dont know how to deal with her and this suitation. Can you please give me some recommendation?
PS, she pays rent on time every month.
Thank YOU!!!
Consider yourself lucky - many LL can't get their tenants to pay. Why do you want to get rid of a good tenant?
New jersey is extremely tenant friendly and it can be very difficult to get a tenant out. Study New Jersey landlord tenant law very carefully. You might want to speak to a lawyer.
My memory says that the owner moving back in is grounds to get a tenant out, but I am not a lawyer and I am not a landlord in New Jersey. Be very careful that you are following New Jersey law exactly.
a tenant out, but I am not a lawyer and I am not a landlord in New Jersey. Be very careful that you are following New Jersey law exactly.
You mentioned this in another thread and in fact I believe it's incorrect. Just because a landlord wants to move back into his property he can't in any state arbitrarily cancel the lease, at least where I'm aware. He can certainly offer to buy out the tenant or otherwise sweeten the pot but the fact that he wants to take back his property isn't legal cause for him to cancel the lease.
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