Landlord Question and Answer Forum

We have a tenant who hasn't paid rent since April. She had surgery beginning of May and said she would get caught up with rent, but we still haven't received a penny for May and June rent. She is on a month-to-month lease. We told her all rent must be paid up by 6/29 or we would file the eviction papers with the county. We are now 2 weeks into June and just don't see how she is going to come up with $1000 in 15 days. After trying to get some rent from her today (she told us it was payday and would have a little bit for us), she had another excuse and we didn't get anything. We purchased this property at the end of last year and she was already living there. Since purchasing the rental, nearly every month she's been late with rent. Once we threatened eviction after 3 months of late rent, she paid on time for about 2 months then had this surgery and it's set her back. My question is do we have to give her a 7 (or is it 10?) day notice to evict in NC when she's now 45 days late? That would mean we can't file paperwork until the end of this month and then of course that takes another 20-25 days to evict. We've already lost 2 months worth of rent and trying to get her out as quick as possible since we are certain she won't have $1000 by the 29th. We did tell her in writing already at the beginning of June that we had to have it all by 6/29 and that 6/19 would be the start of her 10 day notice. But after talking with her today, she's just pulling our chain and we feel we are wasting another 15 days of waiting for nothing to come. Can we skip the notice and go directly to filing with the county now since she's so far behind?

No you can not skip the notice. You must follow the Eviction process to the letter. Because you waited to start the process that doesn't change the procedure. You can give them the 5/7/10(depends or jurisdiction) day pay or quit as soon as they are late. Not sure about NC but depending on how she fights you could be looking at 10 days for the pay or quit, then file at the court house for the eviction procedure how ever long it takes (20-25) days, then they might give her 10 days to appeal, and then another 10-15 days until the sheriff evicts her. could be another two months to get her out. Another option if you don't think she will pay is to tell her be out by the end of the month without damage to the property and you'll right off the back rent. It's probably not worth getting a judgement if she has no ability to pay anyway.

Posted by Scott H, VA on Monday, June 18, 2018