I own my home in Maryland and I have roommates with no signed lease. I do sign a receipt for the ones in question every month acknowledging that I received rent from them. Here's where this gets weird. I originally started with two male roommates. Then later on the one had his girlfriend come stay with him "temporarily" when she was looking for a new place. After about a month I told him she could no longer stay for free. He was originally paying $400 a month and then they started paying $600. (They came up with amount themselves) Since then I increased the rent to $750 for the two of them considering the increase in the cost of electricity, propane and home heating oil. I was hoping they would leave at this point but they didn't. Honestly, her two hour showers and need to do laundry every day in small separated loads isn't worth the rent they're paying or the aggravation. I really want them to leave. He hasn't had a job in about 6 months and she was paying the rent and now she lost her job and hasn't been working for about a month. It's only a matter of time before they just don't have the money to pay the rent. I feel like I'm holding my breath waiting for it to happen. How do I go about getting them to leave without them deciding they're going to sue me when I ask them to leave? Thank you to everyone in advance for reading this and sharing your advice. It's appreciated.

* Non-payment of rent. Your landlord can begin the eviction process as soon as your rent due date has passed and you have not paid the rent. In most instances, you can stop the eviction any time before the sheriff actually comes to evict you by paying the landlord the rent that is owed.

* Breach of lease. A landlord may also evict you for breaking some part of your lease (for example, by having more people living in the home than the lease permits). Before going to court, the landlord must give you one month's advance written notice ending the lease. The landlord will have to prove that you violated your lease and that the violation was a serious one.

Maryland requires a 9 day notice to quite eviction notice.

What can they sue you for? As long as you do not just kick them out without legal written notice and do not throw their stuff away if they get behind in their rent you shouldn't really have a problem with them suing you

Since there is no lease they are month to month tenants, that means you can terminate their tenancy with one rental period's notice. So you can tell them they have to be out by Aug 30.

Or, if they are behind on the rental, you can give them a 9 day pay or vacate notice. In either case, if they don't leave by whatever deadline you give thenm, then you have to go to your local court for a formal eviction.

But the issues of where this is, in some cities and areas your home has to be approved and zoned for multi family to rent out rooms, or zoned as a boarding house, if not, it is considered a illegal rental. I know places like NYC have laws like this. And if you have a illegal rental, they can sue you anytime for all of their rent back, since you could not legally charge them rent.

But to get them out, you give them a 30 day notice to move out. If they don't move out, you take them to housing court.