Serving a Tenant Out of State - Landlord Forum thread

Serving a Tenant Out of State by Bill (MN) on May 17, 2012 @17:25

See my story a couple down about my tenants who want to break the lease early.

If I do decide to take them to court here in Minnesota and they've moved out of state, do I have to go serve them? Who can I get to go to where they live? What does it cost to hire a person to serve papers?

Thank you for your help

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Re: Serving a Tenant Out of State by jannie (IL) on May 17, 2012 @18:05	[ Reply ]

If this were me, I'd cut my losses and figured I had a "learning experience". I don't understand a HOA having the requirement that you stated. That's problem 1, lease was problem 2. You're going to spend money and cause yourself a lot of grief and not be any further ahead.

Re: Serving a Tenant Out of State by Anonymous on May 17, 2012 @19:40	[ Reply ]

I understand why the HOA has that bylaw. It's to mitigate transience in the neighborhood. Most HOAs are ran by homeowners with little understanding of a landlord's perspective. Therefore, you get these inflexible provisions. I feel for the guy but agree that it's better to not pursue the tenants who are breaking the lease and try to figure out some methods for preventing this from happening again. Another thing I would do is simply go to the HOA board and explain the situation. They may be willing to pass a motion to either add some flexibility to the rule or at least grant him a one time exception so that he can get some new tenants in there sooner.