My husband and I own a house in Missouri. He took a job in Phoenix and we had to relocate quickly. It was Sept '06 and the market was very soft, so the only buyers we found could not qualify for a loan because they had no down payment. We agreed to a Contract for Deed which we drew up.

Of course you know what happened, they do not make their payment on time, in fact since 9/06 there has only been one payment made in full on time. We have agreed to them splitting their payments, so that we get at least part of our money and then we send a 14 day Notice of Default for the balance due. If they do not pay the balance within that 14 days, we then send a 15 day Notice of Failure to Cure. They always seem to come up with the money before the Failure to Cure deadline, but we are wondering what our recourse is if they do not. The contract says we take either take immediate possession of the house if they do not meet the Failure to Cure deadline or they are required to pay the entire balance off in full.

So our questions are, do we need a court order for that? Are the notices we are sending them considered Legal Notices? Should or can we ask the local police or Sheriff's department for help in removing them from the home? How do we get them out of the property? Is it OK to accept partial payments or does that hurt our position? We also suspect there may be drug use in the house, if that can be used to strengthen our position when trying to have them removed.

First on contract for deeds you normaly want a larger down payment esp if you are dealing with people who don't quailify for a regular loan.
And is there no clause that changes the contract for deed to a month to month rental once they default ?

But at this point you will have to hope the court views them as in defalt and in a month to month rental if theywill not move out, you can file in the local court where the house is for a eviction notice and hearning, After the hearing they should force them out.

No just suspecting drugs means nothing, if you proved it, that would be different.

Normally you can collect partical payment but you need to check your state law.

No, it does not revert to a month-to-month lease. The term is for two years, if they do not obtain a loan by Oct 2008 we regain all rights to the property and they forfeit all payments. If they default there are two options we can choose, 1. entire principle and interest is due in full and we can take action against them to collect or 2. we can take immediate possession of the house and they will forfeit all previous payments.

As far as the drugs go, my oldest son was friends with these people's daughters and he saw the father smoking pot (I didn't know this until after they moved in), and on his MySpace page the father has drug paranaphelia. I myself have however have never seen him smoke pot, so I don't know how much proof is needed.

I would say you need an attorney at this point since at least your contract for deed is not written like any other I have seen, it sounds more like a combination contract for deed and purchase option.
All of the contract for deeds I have ever seen don't expire, but you hold it till it is paid off. Since the buyer from a contract for deed gets a interest in the equity of the home. So an attorney who knows MO law needs to look over the contract. ( I would like to know who wrote this up ?)
You will either have to foreclose or evict depending on how this contract is written. But all of it has to be filed in MO so you will need an attorney there to do it for you anyway.
** If you don't mind saying , I wonder where in MO the house is, I have a lot of business dealings there.

Thanks for the advice, we are going to contact a real estate attorney in Missouri first thing Monday morning. We purchased the contract off a legal forms site - but I have no idea which one. I think I have seen contracts like this also referred to as a Lease Purchase or Owner Financing. It allows us to retain the title to the property which we would transfer to the buyer once all the payments under the agreement are made. It seems pretty standard, we have some friends that have sold this way before and they walked us through it. We live in the St. Louis County area. Thanks again!

Yes sorry to pick on your form, I buy and sell properties all the time on contract for deeds, and though a lot of trial and error have found to add all sorts of protections. ** while not all ( since I buy many this way myself)
But when I sell to credit challenged people, you assume that most will default, that is why you get a bigger down payment, you make your money selling the house over and over and over on a contract.
My one house I evicted last week, I have a new person, and I am on my third person in 4 years on that home..

Unfortunately for us, we really just wanted to be rid of the house and they were our only takers. They tried to get approved for a loan, but didn't have a down payment and started talking to us about a $10,000 carry back, which I don't think we would have ever gotten paid for. So we felt like with the contract for deed, if something happened, we would at least still have the property it would just be a matter of getting them out of it.

I have to admit we were a little desperate because my husband had already left for AZ and we were anxious to get the family back together. They had rented their previous house for five years and we kind of knew them, their daughters went to high school with my son, but we apparently didn't know them well enough! Live and learn. :)