I’m a new landlord and have made horrible mistakes. I want to evict my tenant but I do not know where to start, what I have bound myself to legally and simply where to begin.

Showed the apartment 9/1, the tenant gave $300 cash to hold until Monday when she was to provide the remaining $175 deposit and $475 rent. She came back to the apartment 9/2, obtained the keys from my BF stating she needed somewhere to put her clothes and paid nothing. Many requests were made (I have dates and documentation of everything I’m posting I’m trying to stay brief) to have her fill out the application because we did not even know her name. She halfway complied omitting any information we needed. She wrote on the back what she will pay and when. A call was placed to her she verbally cursed out my BF stating she did not have to supply an ID, SS#, paycheck stub. I composed a lease anyway, she refused to sign it, I put that in her signature spot and placed a copy under her door. She did pay as she stated, however, she is delinquent. An attempt to put her on a bi-weekly payment plan that = the $475 was constructed and she has failed to sign it, submitted a payment. I have her a 3 day notice to leave. Issues:

Payments to date: 9/1:$300, 9/18:$220, 10/2:$250, 10/16:$190, 10/30:$250.

In my opinion since she refused to sign the bi-weekly payment plan she is referred back to the original lease terms.(if that is even valid because she didn’t sign it) this would apply the 10/30 payment to October. 3 day notice was given 11/2 as follows:

Deposit short $175

September short $5.00

October short $35.00

November short $475.00

Question: should I return the $250.00 given on 10/30 and if so how? She paid in cash should I return in money order? Cash?

Am I able to evict her or am I bound to anything?

Please, I need guidance quickly to get her out.

I agree with the others that you should contact an attorney today. The sooner you get the ball rolling, the sooner you can get the tenant out. I am not familiar with OH. Some locales take longer than others for the process to run through. But take all of our words for it. Especially if you have not been through an eviction before, and attorney will get them out weeks or months sooner than you can on your own. The money saved will more than make up for the cost of the attorney.

Don't let this episode discourage you. It is a learning experience - everyone on this board has made mistakes, and has cost themselves money. That doesn't mean you should quit. It does mean that there are things you can do to improve. My first house, I even had a reputable property manager to handle it. By the time I fired the PM and finally got the tenants out and fixed all their damage, it cost me almost $4000. If I had quit then, I would have been out $4000. Now, 8 years later, I am starting to know what to do and have a property that is bringing in great money.

Learn to be tough. Never forget the first rule of landlording: you own the house, not the tenant. Set rules, and if they don't follow the rules kick them out.

Don't let them pay late. Don't let them be a nuisance.

Don't let them disturb other neighbors. Don't let them damage your property. Get this tenant out as quickly as you can, then put together a good, tough lease (maybe have your attorney help you, or read through several years of posts here). As mentioned, NEVER give out keys until you have completed a full background check (both credit, criminal and eviction history), prospect has filled out EVERY line of the application and lease, and you have all money in hand in certifiable funds (no personal checks). Anybody who balks at this probably has something to hide and you don't want them as a tenant.

Rule #2, and I learned this the hard way as well - an empty house is better than a house with bad tenants. It is always better to take extra time to find an applicant who passes all of your criteria, rather than letting in someone who is not really qualified, but you feel sorry for them, or you are worried that it is taking too long to rent. Unqualified tenants will almost always (there are probably exceptions, but I haven't met them yet) destroy your home, and then leave without any notice at all. Or they will refuse to leave even though they are not paying any rent. Don't take in someone who doesn't meet your qualifications.

Rule #3 - this is a business. they are not your friends. That doesn't mean you can't be friendly. But you can not and will not "do them favors", "trust them", or "work with them". If they can't afford your place, then you don't want them. They will be trouble. Don't let them in, or get them out as soon as your realize that they can't afford it.

Those are some of my rules. Read through this forum and you will see a ton of advice, rules and experiences. As I said, we all have a story of someone we shouldn't have rented to. The red flags were there, but we chose to ignore them. It almost always costs in the end. Learn from this mistake, bring in a good, solid tenant, read up on landlording skills. Reading through this forum is a good start. Get some books from this website or from your local library. Books on tape you can listen to while driving. Take a course - Jeffrey Taylor (the owner of this forum and website) offers training courses as well as seminars, conferences and getaways. They are excellent. Whether through him or other sources, get some help from experienced landlords. Once you see how they do it - and how confident they are in their practices - you will also gain confidence that you can make this a terrific investment.

Join a local Landlords group. They will often meet monthly to let everyone share their good and bad experiences, helping everyone get better.

Dear distraught, you are dealing with a professional tenant here.

She would be a challenge for most of us.

You are correct - you have made horrible mistakes, many of them. (It does sound like this person knew exactly what she was doing and has probably done it before.) However, now you are thinking and glad you came here. You are paying tuition to the school of land lording, and when you get through this you will have a lot of knowledge to use going forward to be a good landlord. For Now:

Go to your local court where evictions happen and hire the best lawyer there. Then let them do their thing. Do not speak to this occupant any more. I do not believe you have any valid lease to refer to, so the laws of your state will rule. Study them! Ask your attorney a bunch of questions about the process and what will happen when (get the education you are paying for).

Please keep posting here and let us know how it goes.

Best wishes

No lease and you don't even know who is living there? That is a big challenge. Get a lawyer because this would be difficult and a special case from a normal eviction. This may be a squatter issue.

To start, I would not have accepted any money to hold the unit until after the screening was completed. If you had screened first, you wouldn't be in this mess.

More advice: once it starts to go bad, don't try to fix it. Just start the process to get rid of them. Dont set up payment plans, don't beg for an application, don't follow the tenant around begging them to sign a lease.

Powers Friedman Linn. I think they do all 88 counties. Flat fee. Michael Linn has over 30 years experience and we in the Cleveland-Elyria-Lorain area think he is the best. Regularly speaks to our group, which has a free legal hotline with him.

Stupid boyfriend. Rethink him. Send her a notice that you are raising her rent. Write out the new lease. Tell her that her current lease is up on thirty days from tomorrow and she must vacate the unit. If she wishes to stay, her new rent will be (up it). If she remains in the unit after December 30, that means that she is accepting the new rent. Then when she fails to pay, you take a copy of this new lease you send via certified letter, and go down to the court house and file.

STOP!!! Take a depth breath. You just earned your PHD in the School of Hard Knocks. Congrats!!!

DO Not talk to this person. IMMEDIATELY Post the eviction notice front and back door. Listing each of the breaches of your lease on the eviction notice. Also include late fees too Then talk to the best landlord tenant lawyer to evict.

Another option is to post a notice: IF you move out within 24 hours of this posted notice (write the time and date you posted it.) There are no debris and broom clean the floors, no damages and no personal items in the unit and all keys turned over. You will receive $150 if you are out with in 24 hours of this notice.

The cost to evict and the time she will continue to be in your unit not paying is going to add up QUICKLY. So cash for keys may be another option. However post the notices front and back door and walk away DO NOT engage with her, boyfriend or any person in the unit.

Good LUCK...

Once you have her out put this behind you. On this site click the Landlord/tenant state law for OHIO. Also get a copy of clause to add to your lease from this site and the lease for Ohio from this site. Take a weekend of no distractions and read each page of the landlord tenant act for Ohio, read the extra clauses, read the lease for Ohio and if there are other good read materials from this site buy them too and read them. Once you are done reading and have improved your lease, your screen process and be proactive. ZERO TOLERANCE, let your unit sit vacant. Once the deadbeat tenant is out of your unit. prep it for the next tenant. Make certain you rekey the locks and check all the windows to make certain they are locked.

NOW that you have your new screening process in place, new lease ready, your unit is ready. NEVER let a prospective tenant nor a tenant into a unit until you have done all your needed research on that tenant. If the application is not completed or the prospect is telling you how to run your business tell them no thank you this unit will not work for you. You are the Landlord and you are in charge not the tenant.

I know about a little about this new landlord's situation and recommended that she come here. If it helps any of you in Ohio to give more specific advise, she is in the Cincinnati area.

The tenant lives below her and is also smoking pot which comes up through the vents. The property is a 1900 mansion divided into 3 apartments.

In Ohio as well as 30 plus other states Marijuana has been legalized to some degree.

Since the landlord lives in the unit above the tenant that is smoking marijuana. First find out what the Ohio Marijuana laws covers; is it medical marijuana, or whats the law.

Get a lawyer as all above say. Draw up a set of rules that you never break such as I will never turn over the keys to a unit until all the monies have been paid and the utilities turned over AND the Lease signed. Never fall for the "I just want to put some stuff in."

Read a good Landlording book and visit this web site. Don't call police over the pot because the cops don't care about pot unless your state has asset forfeiture laws allowing the cops to take your property due to drug use.

Calls to police don't always go the way you hope.

Beware of greed and laziness. When we are greedy and lazy, we take the first person who appears to have money without due diligence and we pay and pay for the mistake. Get a good application, do a credit and a criminal check, and do a home visit, and you dramatically lower your risk of getting burned.

What to do: on 12/26/17 ~4pm my tennant texts me stating the House is not warm enough. I made suggestions on how to get more heat upstairs. The house is old and the ducts in the basement have levers that can be opened/closed to manipulate the amount of heat delivered to different areas of the house. There are also registers like the ones on the floor which can be closed off to maximize the heat delivery upstairs. I sent pictures exactly where these items are, and to how to manipulate them. She texts back ~ 12pm states she cannot do it, I reply when are you available for me to come out and show you? No response.

On New Year’s Eve, 5 days later 12/31/17 she says there’s no heat! I had the property manager go out and inspect on NYE and paid him time and a half. Found the pilot light issue. He spent several days trying to fix the issue, bought firewood and logs to burn in the fireplace to keep the house warm and provided her with 3 space heaters. She takes the heaters to her group home and her job, which I have texts as proof, and states it wasn’t enough heat for the house so she is using them elsewhere. The pipes froze and luckily there is no damage. I demanded she return my heaters for the home, which she did.

On 1/12/18 I bought more heaters for every room and made sure the temp was ~75 to be comfortable. To my knowledge she still hasn’t returned home and isn’t going to until I replace the furnace. Things happen, I’ve done everything in my power to provide her with warmth. I also have a furnished property she could have stayed in if she would have communicated.

She states she’s been staying in a hotel $118.00 a night for two weeks. I said I would be happy to review her receipts and reimburse for the costs associated with her, in her name, one bedroom since she is the only tennant listed on the lease. I would also call the hotel to see if a reservation was required for that weeks stay etc. in the long run, she was without a “furnace” two weeks and I was willing to reimburse at least half of the rent maybe more depending on the receipts. Her lease is the 15th of the month, today is the 20th, no payment, no receipts no response. Late fee as of today. I believe she stayed with her Mom where she was prior to renting the house.

How would you handle this? The rent is $1,000.00 a month and she also owes a $187.00 water bill this month which she did not pay last month and I previously notified her it must be paid with the rent. She text 1/17 stating she would scan the hotel receipts and let me know how she felt the heaters are working. No further response.

pay a HVAC guy tomorrow to fix the furnace ... not the handyman. there is no reason for a tenant to use space heaters nor burn firewood to keep warm for 20 days.