How Do I Get One Of Two Cohabitating Tenants Out?
Hello To All,
I have a question that I hope somebody will be able to help me with. I just received a call from a tenant who's cohabitating with another tenant. The one who called wants the other one out ASAP. He has been paying all the bills, rent, etc.; even though it was supposed to be a 50-50 split. He would like to stay there alone at this point. Is there some way to get the other tenant out? Both names are on the lease, which was a big mistake in this case. Can I give a 14 day notice to the one tenant for nonpayment of half the rent? By the way, I live in Wisconsin.
Thanks for any help!
xy2xy :-?
I'd sit down and talk to both of them about it as nicely as you can. Having both names on the lease isn't a bad thing. You have more leverage in the long run.
Explain the situation and explain how you can either do this the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is that you pay them $50 and they move out within 5 days (or whatever you decide). The hard way is that you have the good tenant only pay half the rent, and you proceed to evict them both. The day the evictions finanlized, you re-lease it to the good tenant.
Evictions create:
-black mark on rental history
-black mark on credit history
-judgements and court records
Make it clear to him that he will NOT be able to stay there. That you'll refund his portion of the deposit if he leaves willingly and leaves the place clean and undamaged.
$50 is a VERY inexpensive solution to this problem.
Don't release either tenant without his/her paying you some cash NOW to be released...and without your knowing, absolutely, that the other T can afford the rent & wil pay it.
Also, if I were one of the T's, I'd be very upset if my LL were to release my partner without my written consent as then I'd be stuck with paying all the rent.
Probably you're going to be better off having them both gone so you can avoid this mess and start over.
The way I hear it, this is a very common happening with 2 or 3 co-Ts, so lots of LLs I know will NOT rent to unmarried partners or buddies...unless it's a rooming house kind of property, then they just rent each T a room with gen. house privileges...so loss of one T doesn't upset the balance sheet...and they can quickly replace the goner with a new T.
This is very common in university and college areas.
[addsig]
To complicate further...are you sure that the one person really wants to stay? Maybe they've stumbled on a novel way to try to break their lease--with your (relieved) consent--so they can both leave.