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I found a roommate and she signed a 3-month lease to rent a room. We were sharing my townhome. She wrote me a bad check for January and I haven't seen her since. It has been 3-weeks. I sent her an email when it 1st happened, asking if she wanted to terminate the rental agreement. No response for 3-weeks. She finally emailed asking when she could pick up her things and telling me I have to come to an agreement with her lawyer. Oh and she is a compulsive liar. I asked for a couple days and times, so I could pick one and we would be done. Now, she is not responding again. She left her things in my home. What do I do? I want her things out. Any advice is appreciated.
Sent her a certified letter ordering to pay the fees for the bad check, late fees and if she doesn't respond at all you should mention a date before she should response, if not you should mention you will get rid of her stuff and expenses (if there are expenses) will be for her account.
Give her at least a week to respond (in writing) and make sure you have a copy of the letter...maybe she won't reply or won't accept the letter so make sure you have tracking for the letter. I have had it twice now and didn't open the returned letter so in case of a court case the judge can see the unopened letter and what is in it. If the letter is not delivered you can go onto usps.com and ask for the letter to be returned to you (once the letter was automatically returned to me, but the last time I went online and applied for it to be returned) Ask for all money that she owes you.
Save all the proof you have, emails, letters, etc...and make pictures of her belongings in your room so she won't be able to claim expensive things in the room that can't be proven by her to be there. Make sure the pictures show a date (if you can't have the date it won't be a big deal but you can also hold a paper of that day up so it will show up in the picture as proof of the date the picture was taken)...you don't have to print them just save them in case you need them.
If this happened to us here in AZ, then we'd have to keep her stuff secure for 30 days. So, in the case of our rental unit, we'd have to pay for a storage unit so that we could rent the place to someone else....
I'm guessin' she's trying to ********* over.....hoping that you make a mistake like throwing her stuff out, selling it, etc.
Be careful. You don't want to be financing her housing for the next 6 months.
Sent her a certified letter ordering to pay the fees for the bad check, late fees and if she doesn't respond at all you should mention a date before she should response, if not you should mention you will get rid of her stuff and expenses (if there are expenses) will be for her account.
Give her at least a week to respond (in writing) and make sure you have a copy of the letter...maybe she won't reply or won't accept the letter so make sure you have tracking for the letter. I have had it twice now and didn't open the returned letter so in case of a court case the judge can see the unopened letter and what is in it. If the letter is not delivered you can go onto usps.com and ask for the letter to be returned to you (once the letter was automatically returned to me, but the last time I went online and applied for it to be returned) Ask for all money that she owes you.
Save all the proof you have, emails, letters, etc...and make pictures of her belongings in your room so she won't be able to claim expensive things in the room that can't be proven by her to be there. Make sure the pictures show a date (if you can't have the date it won't be a big deal but you can also hold a paper of that day up so it will show up in the picture as proof of the date the picture was taken)...you don't have to print them just save them in case you need them.
If this happened to us here in AZ, then we'd have to keep her stuff secure for 30 days. So, in the case of our rental unit, we'd have to pay for a storage unit so that we could rent the place to someone else....
I'm guessin' she's trying to ********* over.....hoping that you make a mistake like throwing her stuff out, selling it, etc.
Be careful. You don't want to be financing her housing for the next 6 months.
Wise advise...don't make 1 mistake, she is waiting for you to make that one mistake...if the Op sticks to the advise she will be on the side of not losing anything more and maybe go to small claims court and file a claim and incl. all collections of the funding + interest.
If he OP has her divers license # and or SSN , then se can report her on this webiste so future LL will be able to check on this scamming tenant.
Bad Tenant.org - Free tenant screening and reporting on bad tenants (http://bad-tenant.org/default.asp - broken link)
Beside hoping you do something wrong, it's also possible she does this so that you can't rent the place to others, just to make inconvenience to you. She can't stay there, and no one else, either. At least you should charge storage fee.
Thanks for the great advice bentlebee...I've done everything you suggested except for the certified letter. I have done emails and follow up emails that include my previous emails. I think I am going to send her the certified letter. I am coming up on 30-days that I have had her belongings. It is time for these things to go.
Definitely check your lease. Maybe the landlord has a clause in the lease that would allow you, on his behalf to dispose of the belongings. We have that in our lease, that if belongings are left behind and we can't get the tenant to pick them up in a reasonable time, they authorize us in advance to dispose of the items at THEIR expense.
(*Edit* Nevermind, I missed that you are the landlord. Did you have anything like this in your lease?)
Also, definitely check your state law. In my state, if you don't have a clause in the lease that addresses it, and the abandoned property is substantial, you are required to actually go through the eviction process and have the sheriff remove the items. The items then get stored, I believe for 3 years. If the tenant wants them, they have to pay the storage fee and any back rent. At the end of the storage time, if the tenant hasn't picked them up, they sell the property at auction, pay you whatever they get, up to cost of removal, storage, and back rent, and then turn the rest, if any, over to the state as unclaimed property.
So, it can be much more complicated than just "send her notice and then move her stuff out".
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