[mdtrans]

A couple of years ago my brother's house was being foreclosed on. He asked my sister and her husband to buy it and let him live in it and he would make payments. They did that to help him out. However, he has continually failed to make the payments as he agreed to and only has made a couple in the last 10 months or so. My sister and I have been making the payments. He will not answer our phone calls or answer the door when we try to talk to him. We have both offered to let him come live with one of us. We are to the point now where we just want him out so we can fix up the house and sell it. Neither one of us wants to or can afford to continue to make the payments on it. However, we have to since we don't want to negatively affect my sister's credit. We have no rental agreement with him. We are pretty sure he has no utilities in his name. I have the power bill in my name and have been paying it because he was living there without electricity. He owed about 300.00 in back utility bills. The utility company made me pay that before they would put his power in my name. He also did not have any water but owed back bills on that also. I decided not to pay that and did not put the water in my name because he was making do by going to a friend's to shower, etc. He has not bothered to return any of my calls or my sister's since last October. My question is, do we need to go through a tenant eviction process? In my mind, he is not a renter because we have no rental agreement. I tried once before to send him a notice asking him to leave the property, but he never did pick up the certified letter at the post office. I have read a couple of things on here that were similar where the advice was to change the locks. I have thought about doing that. Of course, he would probably just break a window and get in. I am unsure where to go from here. If anyone knows what the law is regarding this, please let me know. The house is in Lousiville, Kentucky.

[Fr_Chuck]

No, you can not change the locks, not in this case, he is a renter who is over 8 to 10 months behind, You can send him notice, and also just tell him, if he does not pick it up, who cares you have proof you tried service.

Also in many areas you can hire either the sheriff office or a private process server to serve him notice.

Then after notice, if he does not pay the entire amount behind, and if he still does not leave, you file official notice with the court and they will hold a hearing to allow him to be phsycially removed if needed.

He is a tenant not a guest since paymet arranges were made.

[mdtrans]

Thanks so much for the information. I was worried that might be the case.