When Can I Evict a Tenant – Explained by a Tempe Property Manager

Sometimes, it is necessary to cut ties with your tenant. One of the major reasons that we may decide to cut ties with a tenant is if a situation arises where a tenant is habitually late paying rent. The reason for being late is not important. What’s important is when the tenant is always late, it increases our risk of having a financial loss because of tenant nonpayment.

Tempe Landlord Education: Serving a Notice

When a tenant is late paying rent, the first thing you should do is issue a Five Day Notice. I know there could be a lot of reasons not to issue the notice. Maybe the tenants always come up with the payment later. That’s not important, and it’s actually how we get trapped. Issue the notice and then approach the tenant to find out why the rent is late. Once you get that information, you can evaluate and decide if this is a long term or short term problem.

Accepting Late Rent

If the problem is short term, we can come up with a payment arrangement. Any payment arrangement needs a tenant signature. We never collect partial rent without a partial payment agreement specifying when the tenant will make the remaining payment. That partial payment agreement also ensures that you will receive the remaining rent within that month.

Negotiating Tenant Move-Out

If the nonpayment or the short payment or the late payment is due to a long-term situation like loss of job or some other major disaster, you should right away try to negotiate with the tenant for a move-out. If the tenant will not voluntarily move out, you need to start the eviction process. You have actually started that process with the Five Day Notice. It shouldn’t take too much time to get the tenant out within a 30 day period.

If you have any questions about how to evict a tenant or anything pertaining to Tempe property management, please contact us at Crest Premier Properties.