I think this post needs help... if you want to attack me attack me in a post all about me. Or bring your issues up with me personally. Otherwise move on people!!

You referred to everyone on this board as ***holes, and you feel that you are being attacked?

I'll respond with something else once I wipe away my tears of laughter.

Who's attacking you we are just trying to set the record straight so that the OP isn't confused and get in legal trouble for BAD advice!

That is a HIPAA violation to even suggest that... I hereby demand 30 of your brownie points.

:D

Wow, seriously. I've never used a service like this for help before, so I don't know if this is the norm, but I truly do need Accurate help in this area, all differences aside, please:

I'll have to contact a real estate attorney, because I feel Section 8 made a verbal agreement with me, then changed their mind half-way through (due to a caseworkers mistake). I'll have a better chance collecting from Section 8, than from the deadbeat tenants -- I hope.

As far as removing them, I'll call the sheriff's office in the a.m. and see if they'll remove them since they have no documentation allowing them to be there, and I have already served them the 3 day eviction notice over two weeks ago. I just received the certified mail notice I sent to them "returned unclaimed" big surprise.

What do you think?

siberianair is giving incorrect legal advice on another post to.
Excon outlined exactly what you need to do.
I back up what he said and is what I have been telling you to.
You give the people an eviction notice
You then go to court

Here is a link saying that same thing.

http://www.rentlaw.com/eviction/floridaeviction.htm

Before you take ANY advice review the other posts - people who know nothing about real estate laws are attempting to give you advice and I'm afraid you are paying attention to them.

You can always research the laws in your State and verify what you have been told.

I checked out the website and it was exactly what I needed on how to proceed.

Thanks for all the advice, and sticking in there with me. It got a little :( for me but I'm truly grateful.

I have to point out, Siberianair has over 300 posts and a red box under his/her name.

Tikifl24, you're new, so I'll tell you what that means. It means that she/he has more people disagreeing with her/his advice then agreeing with it. At 300 posts, that says a lot.

Judy, NoHelp, This, Excon, they all know the law, they are our legal pros. If I ever needed legal advice I'd go to them, and I'd do exactly what they told me to do.

I hope you come back to tell us how it worked out. :)

Thanks A, I appreciate your input. I'll keep that in mind for future reference. Thanks, for helping out a newbie! And regards, to the Judy, NoHelp, This, and Excon. Appreciate your time! :)

I'm late on here, but I think I need to add some comments.

First, You said you gave them a three day pay or quit notice back in July. Why didn't you follow-up on that notice. When the three days expired should have been filing for an eviction order the next day.

What I'm concerned about now is whether you can still file without a second notice because you let the first one slip. I'm also concerned that, since Section 8 is involved, that your ability to evict may be constrained. If Section 8 is saying that no Section 8 contract currently exists, then you should be able to file for eviction. But the question about whether you need to refile the 3 day notice is still there.

As for trying to get money out of Section 8, I'm afraid that will be quixotic. The wheels of bureaucracy run slowly and its very possible the worker who authorized (verbally) the extension was not aware of the failure and that's not going to make them liable.

You WILL be able to sue the tenant for damages and back rent. But I'm afraid these people know what they are doing and you will have a hard time collecting anything. I would also suggest putting the electric back in their names ASAP.

Finally, as an aside, this site is an open site. Anyone can post here. There are a number of very conscientious and knowledgeable people who give great advice and will make sure that incorrect advice is pointed out. Sometimes this does cause arguments, but we try to keep them to a minimum.

To add to what Scottgem said
You won't be able to get money out of sect 8. They will say the person she talked to gave bad advice.

The date of the 3 day certified mail notice is 7/9/09; to be out by 7/15/09, which I received back in the mail "unclaimed" 8/2/09. Due to my ignorance in real estate matters, I did not file anything after that. Obviously, these people do know a lot more than I had anticipated.

After this date, I had to leave out of the country on business, so I was unable to follow-up. I also figured that they would be moving into their new place by August, since Section 8 told me they had given them a new voucher for another location.

Regarding the caseworker, how can they not be liable when this person was directly assigned to this particular case and knew exactly what was going on with this tenant and the inspections? Also, the first inspector wasn't as thorough as the 2nd apparently, then I would have never allowed her to move in if I had known I had to fix so many knit-picky items. The biggest thing the 2nd inspector found was that the house was considered a 3 bedroom as opposed to a 4, because there was no window in the 4th bedroom, which only allows me to charge $950 in rent instead of $1100; that was huge for me! How can the 1st inspector miss that!

Regarding the power, we checked and we can turn it off, but not transfer it back to them.

Another particular in this matter is that, I had the tenant sign my own lease (under the instruction that it would be a good idea from the S8 caseworker) in addition to the Section 8 contract. My lease has verbage about holdover, Intent to vacate, Surrender of Premises, default, etc. Though, I would assume it's moot, since the S8 contract supersedes it.

This sounds like such a lose-lose situation. I truly just want them out ASAP. I'm going to go the courthouse today and find out what I need to file :(.

Again, I'm thankful to this site for having an outlet so as not to feel alone in this matter.

Hello again, t:

You need to grasp some distinctions. You've got TWO agencies that you're intermingling... One is the court, whose job is to enforce state law... And, the other is section 8, and I'm not sure what their job is, but I can promise you, it's NOT to enforce the law...

So, let's take the bureaucracy first - Section 8. You're absolutely right, the bureaucrats didn't know what they were talking about. They cost you a LOT of money and heartache, and they're STILL not done costing you money... I don't disagree with that at all...

Are they responsible for their acts?? Yes. Are they LIABLE for their acts?? No. SHOULD they be liable for their acts?? Of course. Can you make them liable simply because they SHOULD be held liable?? No.

You DID have the opportunity to get legal advice before you did section 8. You chose not to...

Now, we have the courts... They CARE what the lease was. They DON'T care what your deal is with Section 8. The courts have TEETH with which to enforce their rulings, assuming your deadbeat tenant HAS anything, which is doubtful... But they can certainly put your tenant ON the street and out of your hair.

So, you probably won't collect a dime from the tenant, and for SURE you ain't going to collect anything from Section 8. Chalk your losses up to being a rookie in the landlord business, and SAVE what you can...

In that vein, you must EVICT your tenant. And you must evict him in the manner I described earlier. It's really a bummer that you put the electricity in your name BEFORE you spoke with us, because you're going to be paying their electric bill for the duration...

Let me ALSO caution you about the clerk of court. I said earlier that they'll help you fill out the papers, and they will. They will NOT offer legal advice, however, so if you ask them what you should do, they won't help you.

excon

I totally agree with excon here. My only concern here is whether you nullified the 3-day notice by not following up. It it was nullified it means you have to serve them again. Since they refused your first letter, you will have to hire a process server to serve them.

I think the best thing she can do is start all over with another 3 day notice and send it mail, certified and hand delivered and follow up this time.