This series gives you the real scoop on 10 things you’re likely to encounter while managing your own residential rental property.
#5 If tenants don’t pay, you can’t just throw them out
When tenants don’t pay rent, owners often want to change the locks and immediately banish them from the home. Not a smart move! This could land you in the middle of a law suit with YOU as the defendant! To protect yourself, study your state’s landlord/tenant laws. Tenants have rights, and many times, not paying the rent doesn’t void these rights. To evict a tenant, you must follow your state’s process precisely and in the stipulated timeframes to receive what you ultimately want--- a court order or ‘writ’ that will legally allow you to evict the non-paying tenant. If state procedures aren’t followed exactly, your eviction request could be dismissed and you’ll have to start the process over again. Even under ideal conditions, evictions can take 2-4 months. They’ll take much longer if you fail to follow the law.
While you may evict one or two tenants in your lifetime, property management firms handle these situations much more often. A good property management firm will have buttoned down procedures to assure the eviction process is followed exactly and eviction writs are ordered in the minimum time allowed by law.
Georgia has a 89-page landlord/tenant handbook you can download for free. Here’s the link: http://www.dca.ga.gov/housing/HousingDevelopment/programs/downloads/Georgia_Landlord_Tenant_Handbook.pdf