Giving Bad Advice - Landlord Forum thread

Giving Bad Advice by Tonya (Florida) on November 5, 2009 @16:05

I am a LL and read the forums every 4-5 days to see what people are saying. I came across a post where a LL wanted to know if they could accept rent from someone that they were otherwise evicting for a noncompliance violation other than non-payment of rent. One person said do not take the rent payment. Then another person who claims to be a LL said' "If they offer rent, you should accept it -- rent is not the subject of your suit. Your eviction suit is for non-performance under the contract."

The second person is absolutely wrong... at lease he or she is in my state. And I'm willing to bet the same is true in his or her state also because it's makes no sense at all to accept rent (unless it's back rent) from a tenant you're evicting. Laws are supposed to be sensible.

I think you should be more careful and actually know the laws before you give advice.

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Re: Giving Bad Advice by OK-LL on November 5, 2009 @16:24

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If you go back to that thread, you'll see that the OP verified my advice with her attorney and he validated that I was correct. He instructed her to accept rent for the current period while they pursued eviction for the non-rent lease violations. The logic is, the tenant is current living in the property and therefore should pay rent. The c/q notice is somewhere between 7-30 days, depending on your state, and the eviction process can take 15-45 or more days to adjudicate, so it makes every kind of logic to continue to collect rent up to the point where you have a judgment for possession in your hands.

Would you let the tenant live in your property for free for as long as it takes to evict? If so, you'd be making a legal and financial error.

Re: Giving Bad Advice by OK-LL on November 5, 2009 @16:26	[ Reply ]
Furthermore, what if the judge decidesin the tenant's favor? Do you imagine they'll have the back rent now due? More likely than not, being a renter, they'll have spent it and you'll be hanging out for that rent. So back to court, right?

Re: Giving Bad Advice by Eve (IL) on November 5, 2009 @16:28

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You might need to re-read the thread! The original poster came back and posted this:

"I talked to my lawyer and he said I can collect rent without having that hurt my eviction process since I am evicting them for failure to comply with my 10 cure notice. Of course they didn't pay yesterday like they were suppose too, so I did serve them a 5 day notice to pay or quit. But I thought I would pass the legal information regarding that issue along."

Now you are in a different sate than that poster so who need to be careful here??

My experience is the laws, the courts and of course our wonderful deadbeat tenants make no sense!!

Re: Giving Bad Advice by Anonymous on November 5, 2009 @16:50	[ Reply ]
Non-payment was not the reason for the eviction in that case. The tenant was being evicted because of lease violations that he failed to cure after being given proper notice to do so. The money has nothing to do with that eviction. So the LL could accept the money and still evict. As long as the tenant failed to cure, the tenant was still in violation of the lease.

Re: Giving Bad Advice by LL Yikes (IL) on November 8, 2009 @10:10

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So it was my original post and yes again I confirmed with my lawyer that in the state of IL, I could collect the rent since that is not what I am evicting them for. And yes its because they will still be living in my property until the end of November while I go through the eviction process. But unf I would say these are professional tenants and they know that so of course I haven't seen any money from them.