Eviction Specialists

by Darrin DeRoches June 9 - 15, 2011

One of my clients decided to sell his student rental last month. We put it on the market and received great attention and a firm offer for a great price. At the same time he still had it up for rent. The landlord decided to go with the renter, signed a year lease and took the deposit check to the bank. I had to tell the prospective buyers the bad news and that was that.     Two weeks have passed and the new tenants are all moved in, all the little fix–ups were completed but he gets a call from the bank – the deposit check for $1,800 has bounced. The landlord stops by the rental to see what is going on.  The house looks great, kids bikes are in the backyard, they even set up a kiddy pool – everything looks good – must have been an oversight.  The tenant starts out the conversation saying the fridge does not work properly, the grass needs cutting blah, blah, blah. When asked about the check the tenants states, “I am not going to pay.” The landlord is a little taken back by all this, they get into a heated discussion and the last words from the tenant are “I know the game!”     What game? The landlord calls me for advice and I tell him some very unfortunate news that it will take a minimum of 60 days to evict but it would likely be about 90 days.  The landlord is losing it, thinking up all these schemes of how to remove the tenant but I remind him the loss of three to four months of rent will add up to about $8,000.00 dollars but it is a lot less than potential damage or legal proceedings. He found it hard to swallow so he called his lawyer and he was referred to an “eviction specialist” who basically tells the landlord the same thing we discussed, except he says they can get them out in 60 days. A month has already passed so 90 days is the real cost, I doubt they will get them out in 60, but we’ll see.     The game is the tenant knows how the Landlord tenant acts works, so he moves his whole family in to a new property and does not pay. He knows it will take 60–90 days to be evicted.  He does not pay the utilities, does not have to pay for lawyer’s fees and basically takes the landlord for six to 10 grand in the process. Then the last month of occupancy he looks for another property and does it all over again.  The kicker is the “eviction specialist” knows the tenant by name.  He just evicted him from a property seven blocks from my client’s property. Cash the deposit check first before they take possession, call past landlords, only accept first and last and if they are in a rush to move in, offer cash, give you a story – lose a month’s rent now instead of  a ton of stress and thousands later.  V       Darrin DeRoches is a local real estate and mortgage broker. He can be reached to answer questions, comments or stories about real estate experiences through this weekly column at mail@uniquerealty.ca.