[denise jones]

I just received a 5 day pay or quit notice, I am out on disability from work and when I do get my check it won't be enough to cover the rent. Single mom with 3 kids what is my next step and how long do I have. I live in single family home I am renting

[jillianleab]

If you don't pay within the five days, your landlord will proceed with eviction. In my county, I can have someone out in about a month. I'm not sure how quickly it goes in Richmond (I'm also in VA); it depends on how backed up the courts are. But in general, you don't have a ton of time left.

Your options are to find the money and pay the rent, try to negotiate with your landlord, or wait for your eviction date and hope the judge rules in your favor (don't count on it).

Good luck, I hope something works out for you.

[Fr_Chuck]

First I do feel extremely sorry for you and do understand, but as a person who was a landlord for years, I can also see a landlords issues.

Often they owe money on the houses they rent out, so when you don't pay, they can't always make their payments, they also pay taxes and insurance on the building. All of this comes from the rent payments you pay. So if you not paying causes them to have late charges or other money issues that is not fair either. And even if they don't have those payments, they expect your rent to be their profit to pay their bills.

So with the 5 day notice, after 5 days if you have not paid, and you have not moved, they will file in housing court, this is the unknown, it takes about a week to two weeks to get into court where I used to have my houses. So at the time you appear, they will normally give you about a week to get out. So at this point and time I would say you have about a month to move give or take a little bit.

[denise jones]

Good Afternoon,
I certainly do understand the landlords point of view. It is not his fault things have happened the way they have and I know business is business I was not blaming anyone I just wanted to know what my next step was. My landlord has a mortgage to pay I was asking because I can't see myself or my kids in the street. I appreciate your response and the answer to my question. Thank you

[Fr_Chuck]

I did not mean to infere otherwise, sadly we do get people here that expect to be able to live free, ( really) they feel the landlord has a obligatoin to allow them to live for months without having to pay.

[jillianleab]

Chuck is right, a lot of people come here looking for advice on how to delay their eviction, or cheat their landlord. Many people don't consider the landlord at all, and the financial difficulties placed upon him/her when rents don't get paid.

Your situation, sadly, is not uncommon. This sort of thing happens to people all the time. If you have a good relationship with your landlord, try to talk to him/her and see if you can work out a payment plan. Sometimes if you show a bit of good faith effort, a landlord will go a lot further in helping you than you might think. If not, see if there is any money you can borrow from friends, family, a church, etc. There might even been groups in your area that help people such as yourself who are out on disability get their bills paid. Exhaust all your options and do it quickly, before your court date is set.

If none of that works out, start asking around to friends and family about staying with them on a temporary basis. As horrible as it might sound, if you are evicted and have no where to go, you will literally be sitting on the curb with all your stuff. I will say, however, that the date of eviction court is not the day you must leave; the court will grant the landlord possession effective a certain date after your court appearance. This could be a few days, a week, maybe two, but probably not much longer than that. So, if you do end up in court, and you do get ruled against, you should (there are exceptions) have a house to go back to that day. You might not have it much longer...

Good luck.