After the 3-Day Quit Notice expires, can a landlord receive payment (in full or partial) and NOT be legally obligated to stop the eviction process?

My mother is a first time landlord and tonight at midnight expires her very first 3-Day Quit on a tenant (I believe this is what they are called. They have 3 days to pay in full or to give possession of the house back/move out). The day the 3-Day notice was posted to the door of the property, she also secured an Eviction Lawyer to handle everything else. The lawyer can't make any moves until Monday when his office is open. Mom is to call if a (Full) payment is made before midnight tonight. She understands that she is not to take a partial payment of any kind. The fee paid the lawyer didn't even get her an audience with him (we spoke to an underling) and we were told that any consultation would be an added expense (this lawyer is used and refereed by a Realtor who was selling another piece of property for their company's eviction needs). So, I'm explaining/asking her needs here.

The renter approached her via handwritten note today and she called him back. He is asking her to meet him halfway on this and to wait until the middle of the month. He also promises to pay the money she is out for the lawyer. Now, he's already broken the lease, broken an addendum to the lease (a promissory note in which he picked days and smaller increments to catch up, and a bounced check). She's not budging with the eviction process starting on Monday with the lawyer. Yet, she is sorely missing money and of course this process could take up to 30 days and then she'd be out rent for March as well (as this fellow isn't leaving the property on his own).

Here's my questions:
1- If he comes and pays in full tonight, can she include the fee for the lawyer or is she stuck with the dollar figure that she put on the 3-Day notice. If she's stuck, and he pays everything else, is this a small claims situation to be made whole?

2- If he comes and pays in full TOMORROW (after the 3-Day notice expires) AND she accepts the money, does she give up her right to continue the eviction (after all, the 3-day doesn't relieve him from his debt, right?). Or is the only way she can legitimately accept a full payment after tonight is to allow him to be her renter OR via small claims court? My mother could certainly use the money and she'd like to accept it instead of spending even more time/money going to court.

3- If he comes and pays a partial payment TOMORROW (after the 3-Day notice expires) would she be under any obligation to continue to be his landlord, or can the eviction process continue so she doesn't have him as a client any longer?

4- If he claims bankruptcy before he is served (I would imagine it wouldn't be on Monday) is my mother out of luck?

I've been helping my mother since the tenant/landlord relationship started going south. I've convinced her, for the future, to hire a Property Manager to deal with this. We already have one lined up and waiting, so I'd like her to get rid of this guy and start fresh (unless he pays in full, of course then I know we don't have a choice).

Thank you in advance.

I don't know if this bit of information is necessary to answer the above, but the original lease was for a year and would have expired, had nothing happened, in June of this year. The tenant is behind three months rent as of this month plus late fees and a bounced check fee.

She should not accept anything less then the full amount owed, including late charges.

If he does not make payment by the deadline, but offers payment before Monday morning, tell her to not accept it unless the tenant signs an agreement to reimburse her for attorney fees.

Also she does not accept a personal check, only cash, money order or certified check.

I'm not sure how a bankruptcy will affect things. But I doubt if he can get a filing in the time alloted.

Before she does accept payment, she should also inform the tenant that any future arrears will not be tolerated. As soon as payment is late she will serve another pay or quit.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

If he does not make payment by the deadline, but offers payment before Monday morning, tell her to not accept it unless the tenant signs an agreement to reimburse her for attorney fees.

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Could you clarify something for me? She does not want to continue renting to this fellow once the deadline is up. (He's already had a handwritten promissory payment addendum and has broken it... there's no need to assume this would be different).

If she accepts payment AFTER the deadline, does this STOP the eviction process? Or can she still kick him out? (I know the answer to BEFORE the deadline, I need specifically the AFTER deadline question answered.)

Thanks so much!

If she accepts payments for future periods, then yes. So assuming rent was due on Feb 1 and she accepts payment a payment that includes the Feb rent, then yes, she has given him leave to stay.

If she truly wants him out, she should have served him a 14 day termination of lease notice. Under Fl law a periodic (month to month) tenancy can be terminated with 14 (maybe 15) day notice. But even if she does accept the Feb rent, she can serve him with a termination notice on 2/13. But she can't file for eviction then until that deadline has passed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

If she accepts payments for future periods, then yes. So assuming rent was due on Feb 1 and she accepts payment a payment that includes the Feb rent, then yes, she has given him leave to stay.

If she truly wants him out, she should have served him a 14 day termination of lease notice. Under Fl law a periodic (month to month) tenancy can be terminated with 14 (maybe 15) day notice. But even if she does accept the Feb rent, she can serve him with a termination notice on 2/13. But she can't file for eviction then until that deadline has passed.

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He's not month to month, his lease is for a year. The lawyers advised us to post the 3-Day quit after which they are going to serve him with papers which will give him a window of time to either consent and move out or to contest it in court. When you mention a 14 day termination of lease notice, is this something that is filed, or is this something that perhaps the lawyer is/should be doing? After already trying to cut the guy a break early on, she had him fill out and then sign a contract (that the lawyer's office said would be seen as an addendum) which stated he'd make X payments (from arrearages) and take responsibility for future on-time rental payments as well as late fee, etc. Violation of those terms at anytime, it was agreed to on the document, would be cause for immediate eviction. Would that be considered the 14 day notice? I wasn't with her in the lawyer's office, but I do know that they are going to serve him with papers this week. The tenant has the ability to contest or submit. Contesting would lead us into court.

As the deadline expired last night (with him neither paying nor moving out) I've encouraged her not to accept any payments of any kind and allow the eviction process to proceed since his history shows that "one more chances" will not work with this individual.

Ok,
1. lease or no lease they can be evicted for not paying
2. if they are in default and do not pay within the 3 day period you do not have to accept payment
3. if you accept any payment what so ever you are being obligated to allow them to stay. ** which you can do if you want.
4. if you want them evicted, on Monday you go down to the court house and file for a eviction in the courts

If the lease was for a year, when does it expire? The 14 day notice is applicable only to a periodic tenancy. So if the lease doesn't expire for a while its not applicable.

The most quick way to evict a tenant who is not pay is the Pay or Quit notice. The drawback of this method is that the tenant has the option of paying within the time frame. If that happens, if the landlord still wanta them out, they have to file a termination of lease notice which requires a longer lead time (generally 30 days). Evictions are processed only after the initial notice to vacate deadline has passed.

The attorney should file for an eviction order in court as soon as possible, preferably Monday. The court then issues a summons and sets a court date. At the hearing the tenant can attempt to show cause why he shouldn't be evicted. From what you said, I don'[t see any grounds for that. So the court will isssue an eviction order with a date by which he needs to vacate. If he still hasn't left, then mom hires a sheriff to physically remove him.

The lease was supposed to be up as of July of 2009.

Here's where we are so far:
The 3-Day notice has both been acknowledged by the tenant and has expired. The lawyer for my relative (the landlord in this situation) is filing a complaint today. My understanding is this will result in an Evictions Summons.

Am I correct in that this summons is delivered in person to the tenant (or otherwise left posted)? Or is this something via the mail?

If I'm understanding this correctly, the amount of time between the complaint being filed and the summons being issued/delivered completely depends on how busy the courts are at the moment. In otherwords, just because the complaint is filed today it doesn't mean that the summons will be delivered to the tenant in the same 24-hour period? However, when he is served, he has 5 days to respond. Does that 5 days begin the following morning (assuming it isn't a holiday/weekend)?

While this fellow doesn't have a leg to stand on (see above posts), he has threatened to make this long, drawn out and expensive... so worst case scenario would you guess that he would respond or force us to move to a motion for default?

One other question if we move for a Motion for Default (assuming tenant doesn't respond properly or at all)... is the Motion for Default separate from a Final Judgment and a Writ of Possession? Are these three separate process that we have to wait on or are they three separate things that are handled in one go?

What constitutes proper service varies by jurisdiction, so the best person to ask is the attorney. But yes, court caseload can impact the time. Generally the date of service is included in the time.

Again different juridictions vary. If he doesn't respond, then the LL gets a default judgement and eviction order. If he does respond, you may have to wait for a court hearing to be scheduled.

If he want to draw it out, I would suspect he requests a hearing so he does respond on the 5th day.

But the LL can sue for rent right up to the day he vacates and for court costs.

New update: While the 3-Day notice has long since expired, the court caseload has slowed serving him the other paperwork (we're just waiting, basically, for their call to say he's been served. UPDATE>>>>As soon as I posted she called. He was just served via a posting on their door as they could not locate him physically!). After emailing her tenant, yesterday, about a termite inspection happening in a month's time, she received a notice from him advising her that he will be moving all of his personal items from the house and vacating by a hard date (within the week). He includes that he'll send a forwarding address. Unique to this correspondence is his lack of acknowledging any monies owed (usually he professes future payments). I don't know if that matters or not.

I've advised my mother not to stop the eviction process. He's rarely followed through on any deadline related matter, so in my opinion it would benefit her not to stop the eviction process in case the man finds he's unable to move or if this is in fact a ploy for her to call off the legal end of things. She has responded, via a response email, that she'll be available at X o'clock on that date to retrieve keys/garage door openers.

My questions at this time would be, given the above info:

1) Even after he moves out, should she allow the eviction notice to still be served just so it doesn't come down to a he-said/she-said thing?

2) If tenant isn't leaving a forwarding address before his move, and he doesn't respond via phone (remember, he keeps changing his cell phone and emails) how would one pursue the monies owed? (She will want to include the legal fees incurred, as well as any damages/extensive cleaning that may have to be done upon inspection of the home).

1) Yes continue the eviction process. But once he has turned over the keys (she will need to rekey the locks), then she can stop the process.

2) This is why you get references during the application process. To find him if he skips.

Darn. The reference has moved and no forwarding address. We do have the working address of the tenant, however.

Update: The tenant has until Friday to respond to the courts. He's vacating on his own tomorrow and has threatened tonight to leave the keys outside on the landlord's driveway tomorrow. LL requested he not do that, stating that she wanted to give a receipt for the keys and also to receive the same # of key copies as was provided as well as the garage door openers. LL was told he changed the combination on the Garage door, but not given the combo (I suppose that is not a big deal, but it was against the lease agreement).

Still no attempt to pay his debt. The utilities are still on today, not sure if he plans to turn them off. He said he's abandoning some of his property that he doesn't want to take with and will haul some things out to the street (today was trash pick up, so now it'll be there a week unless scavengers come).

Question is, he was supposed to vacate already. He also mentioned other times that he would be out of the house, and didn't keep his word. Wondering if she should just allow the eviction to continue to process so it pings his credit. Also, not providing forwarding address.

Until the LL takes possession the eviction should continue