Eviction Notices in Miami What You Must Know

The eviction process in Florida is handled by Chapter 83 of the Florida statues. For any eviction to be considered to be legal and binding a certain process must be obeyed. While you may consider this to be arduous this is to protect both the landlord and the tenant in these situations. You need to understand this in order deliver the eviction notice correctly. The time you need to give your tenants notice will vary depending on their infraction to their lease. For instance, nonpayment of rent would cause only a three day notice of eviction. However, if say the tenants violated the lease by having a pet when they shouldn’t have, then that would be a seven day notice. As well, there may be times when you need to evict the tenants due to illegal activities that they are participating using your property. Selling illegal drugs or even making or growing illegal drugs may be grounds for an eviction. You definitely want to get tenants that sell drugs off your property because the authorities could seize the property and you would not only lose the rent but any future investment from that property. You can also evict someone for having someone living in the residence that isn’t named on the lease. Anything other than nonpayment of rent will cause a typical seven day notice of eviction to be issued.

What are Some of the Guidelines for an Eviction Notice

The days you count in these notices are working days, and don’t count holidays or weekends. Since this is really a civil matter it is mostly handled by the civil courts. It is always wise to be on the side of the law and not break any guidelines or laws that are meant to protect your tenants. The more you stay within the law the more you will have a chance to win your case in court, if it should come to that. As a landlord you may just want the parties out of your property, or you may want the people out of your property as well as past rent as well. Either way you must file separately for damages as well as for the removal of tenants. Please be aware you may never recover past due rent due to bankruptcy proceedings as well as other financial hardships your tenants may be experiencing. To give eviction notice you must follow a certain procedure. Fortunately, this procedure doesn’t change often, however, it is not cheap and it just adds to your cost as a landlord. If you want the Sheriff to serve notices on your tenant that will cost you at least 40 dollars per time that they are called out. You can elect to use a private service if you wish; however, you must let the county know that ahead of time. For an eviction to be considered legal the tenants must be served three days’ notice. That is three business days and doesn’t include holidays and weekends. After three days you will receive a default judgment if your tenants choose to not fight you in court over this eviction. In that case, you will be required to have the sheriff’s office kick out your tenants. The reason why you cannot have your tenants kicked out by you personally is for multiple reasons, namely you don’t want to get into a domestic disturbance with someone on your property. Just be careful and leave this process up to the professionals at the Sheriff’s office as they know exactly how to take care of the situation.

The Renter Fights the Eviction Notice

Now, if your renters choose to fight you, and they may have legal grounds to do so, then this is going to be dragged out for possibly months. For instance, if the tenants choose to pay you partial rent, and not the full rent, then that may cause an extension to the eviction process. Every time the tenants pay you they will do so using the court system and you will not get paid until the court gets paid and takes their fees. The lease agreement you agreed to means that you also have to obey certain stipulations. The stipulations that are in the lease agreement can also be used against you to defend the tenants from eviction. Essentially, if you agreed to the lease terms you must be sure that you also followed to the letter of the agreement otherwise your tenants would have a valid argument against eviction. *This is for educational purposes only and not legal advice. Please ask an attorney for the most recent laws applying to evictions.