Re: How can I sue for advanced rent? - Landlord Forum thread 342638

Re: How can I sue for advanced rent? by Garry (Iowa) on January 30, 2016 @23:00

You cannot collect the rent for those 11 months. You don't understand what the eviction papers meant. The 3 day notice YOU gave your tenant, gave them a choice----either pay the rent, or leave. They chose not to pay the rent, but they also chose not to leave, either. YOU then went to the court system and asked the courts to make the T leave, which they did. Your tenant is now gone, because YOU forced them to leave, thru the eviction process. Depending on how your state's laws are worded. YOU cancelled your own lease, effective either at the end of the 3 days, when you filed in court, the actual court date, or when the sheriff actually put them to the street. In Iowa, our leases are cancelled at the end of the 3 day notice, and we can only charge the T for the full month the 3 day notice was cancelled in, and no future months after that. If a judge ever granted you the 11 months of rent, they would also have to award possession back to the former tenant. Is that what you want? The only other possible scenario is if you were awarded the 11 months of rent, and the evicted T did not get or want actual possession, you would would have to keep your place vacant for the 11 months, because a LL is not allowed to collect rent from 2 different parties on the same unit. That's fraud, and you can possibly go to jail for that, or at least get a big fine.

[ Reply ] [ Return to forum ]

Re: How can I sue for advanced rent? by Anonymous (West Virginia) on January 31, 2016 @02:54	[ Reply ]

That certainly makes sense, but I swear that one time I saw someone get "advanced rent," against them on their credit... I could be wrong...

Re: How can I sue for advanced rent? by Garry (Iowa) on January 31, 2016 @10:21	[ Reply ]

You could maybe get 1-2 months of rent if you can negotiate that with the tenant,and without going thru the court system, using the eviction process. For instance, if the T was 4 months into a 1 year lease, and his company transferred him out of state. The lease is still valid, but the T had no choice but to break it. If you couldn't negotiate an early termination amount with the T, you could go to court for the remaining amount owed on the lease. HOWEVER, most all state laws in these instances say you must try to "mitigate" your damages. That means you must try to re-rent the place again, at the same rent amount, for the remaining amount of time on the lease. Usually judges will say 2 months is plenty of time to find a new T, so that's probably all that they would award you for "advanced rent". A LL cannot just leave a place vacant without trying to rent it at all, and then ask the courts to award 6-8 months of rent back to you from your former T.