Good morning. My tenant still not paying the rent for months even after appearing in the court. The judgement is that he has to pay the outstanding rents plus applicable fees. And yet he is still refuse to pay. I try to serve him letter by certifify mail but he is not accepting the mail. I previously did served him a "Final notice of rent past due' letter. He owed four months of the rent. I wated to evict him but not sure how?? I am in Pittsburgh, PA. Please advise.

Caryn

You can't evict someone by sending letters. You mention a judgement so I assume you must have been in court already, go back to court and either get the judgement enforced or start the eviction process in court.

Welcome to AMHD. You have described a judgement for payment of outstanding rents and fees. Did you sue for eviction? Does your judgement address eviction?

You really shouldn't become a landlord without knowing the process.

What you should do is go to your local housing court and find out the process for eviction. Each area has different rules on the process. But generally it works like this:

Step 1. Serve tenent with a 3-10 day pay or quit notice or a 30-60 day lease termination notice. The amount of time will depend on lease terms and local laws. The difference between the two is that the pay or quit notice allows them to stay if they pay in full. But pay or quit gets them out quicker.

Step 2. When the deadline mentioned in step 1 expires and the tenant hasn't left, you go to court for an eviction order. A hearing will be scheduled to give the tenant the opportunity to show why they shouldn't be evicted. If they can't, then the court issues an eviction order given them a deadline to vacate.

Step 3. If they still haven't vacated when the evistion order deadline expires, you take the order to a sheriff or comparable person, who will enforce the eviction order and physically remove the tenant.

Now you mentioned a judgement. Where did you sue the tenant and for what? What did the judgement say?

The judgement ordered from the judge is to have the tenant aware that he has outstanding rents to be pd and the tenant told the judge he will pd those outstanding rents and yet still not receive any from him. He is ignoring the judegement. I wanted to take further step to evict him now and wanted to ensure I am ding it correctly. He has destroyed the property and also not letting me to go in to fix the water problem in the apartment

If you follow Scott's steps you will eventually get the tenant out. When they resist you can usually count on this taking well over a month. The last tenant I evicted took 3 months from the day she skipped payment until the day I walked into the condo.

The judgement ordered from the judge is to have the tenant aware that he has outstanding rents to be pd and the tenant told the judge he will pd those outstanding rents and yet still not receive any from him. He is ignoring the judegement. I wanted to take further step to evict him now and wanted to ensure I am ding it correctly. He has destroyed the property and also not letting me to go in to fix the water problem in the apartment

Sorry; a tenant cannot deny you access to the property. What state are you in? State laws vary but most of them have a minimum notice requirement. My state says I have to give no less than 12 hours notice; once I give the notice, the tenant cannot stop me from entering the property 12 hours later.

He ignore the notice that I sent to him... Pittsburgh, PA is the property located.

Doesn't matter if he ignores the notice. You did your part by notifying him; he cannot legally bar you from entering your own property.

I would strongly suggest you find and join a landlord's association in Pittsburgh. This guy seems to know the law and you don't so he's taking advantage of you. He's got you jumping through hoops instead of the other way around. He's going to cost you a huge amount.

The judge who issued the judgement was no help to you. He should have told you that you were following the wrong procedure. All he did was waste your time.

But you may be able to use the judgement to your advantage. Do you know where he works or banks? If so, you can go back to the court that issued the judgement and get a writ of attachment against his bank accounts and a garnishment of his salary. That may get his attention.

As for entering the house, you sent him notice that you were going to do so. You then show up at the time indicated with your repair person and a locksmith. If your keys don't work, you get the locksmith to let you in. If someone is at home, you call the police to let you in. Have the locksmith rekey the locks, but you will have to give the tenant a copy. Take pictures of the inside showing any damages they have done.

Then take the proof of damages to to housing court and ask for an emergency eviction to prevent further damage. You may not get it, buts its worth a try. You might even consider hiring an attorney to do this for you as they will know exactly what to do.

Did you do a background check on the tenant? How long after moving in did he stop paying?