What are my rights as a landlord when there was Never a lease signed. There is no lease with this tenant. The tenant and I had a verbal agreement for her to rent month to month for a couple of months. Now they have not paid rent in 3 months. I have told them to move out but they are still there. Isn't this trespassing? What are the Minnesota laws on this?

They are tenants, not trespassers. You have to give them a written notice to pay or vacate the premises. In Minnesota the time for the notice is 14 days. If they haven't paid or moved out after the 14 days is up then you can file a lawsuit for eviction.

Well, in the absence of a written lease both you and the tenant are bound by your state's landlord / tenant laws. There's a "sticky" at the top of this forum with a link to each state's laws. That will tell you how long of a notice you need to give these people to "pay or vacate". Usually it's somewhere around 3 days. Then if they don't get out you'll go file an eviction. In addition to getting a ruling for eviction you should also be able to get a monetary judgement against them for all of the back rent, including the entire month of November. It may be another matter collecting it, but getting the judgement shouldn't be a problem.

The eviction process and time frames vary state to state, too. But basically the court will set a hearing date. The tenant will be served notice. If they don't show up you'll get a default judgement. If they do show up they'll be able to present their defense, but there's not a lot of defense for not paying rent. They'll typically be given a period to vacate (it's actually how long they have to appeal the judgement) before you can go back, file a writ of possession and hire the sherriff or constible to come remove them from the property.

In the future may I highly recommend screening your tenants, using a written lease (evein if it's month - to - month, that's fine) and serving them with a pay or vacate notice when they're 3 days late, not 3 months.

They are tenants, not trespassers. You have to give them a written notice to pay or vacate the premises. In Minnesota the time period for the notice is 14 days. If they haven't paid or moved out after the 14 days is up then you can file a lawsuit for eviction.


Wow! 14 days... that stinks!