electricity transfer

[FarmerJ]

51 in my state for comparison purposes only a tenant must have 7 days notice before eviction hearing so if a LL moves lightning fast and picks a court date at filing say that is 8 days away one must be very lucky to get tenant served that same day I used to go for nine days, I was lucky I had a small group of people I could trade serving with and first attempt would be made same day of filing , in evening, second day if no luck second attempt in the morning and if no luck again then our law allowed for alternate service , I would take the server to the post office have them send one copy via certified , one copy via certificate of mailing and then hit the clerk of the court so they could offer the reciepts and swear out that they completed alternate service listing the two days and times they attempted to serve , one had to be evening hours , one had to be daytime. then court date was set and the Max the courts allowed anyone in my state who asked for it was seven days, writ of restitution order could be typed up right away or on eighth day , then taken to sheriffs dept and usaully served in a day or so. Writs of restitution at the time of service gave tenant 24 hours to vacate and usually with in a two days of that service they either left on there own or could be bodily ejected by deputies , most LLs in my state would go to the ejectment and change locks on the spot. so in the end at the time the average number of days if one had to literally force the tenant out the hard way could be 17 to 18 days if lucky, a few years ago one thing changed here now a demand to pay with set number of days has added more time to the whole thing here. I imagine as the economy drags in many areas many more LLs are going to have to be even more proactive /rigid about their business practices. Any who thanks for the extra info about the process in your area , some time if you wish to talk about submetering or conservation methods rather than continuing on here, feel free to private message me J

 

[Eekamouse]

Be sure to come back and let everyone know what happens with this tenant.

 

[landlord51]

Sorry - I gave slightly wrong information on the procedure in my county. After I posted this a couple days later I got the judgement in the mail and I talked to one of the court clerks.

So on the eviction hearing on the 21st when my tenant was a no-show the judgement gave possession to landlord at that time. But then the tenant has ten days to appeal after judge signs judgement (he signed it the same day) and then I can go for possession on the 11th day so long as it's a bus day (which is a separate fee, which is why I was confused about it, the first fee is just to schedule the hearing). Anyway, tomorrow I'll file for possession and soon after the tenant will get a posting on her door from the sheriff telling her exactly how long she has to move out. It's typically about a week, but this is up to the sheriff. It might take a day or two for him to post the notice (which is why I remembered about 10 days). It's been a while since someone squatted till nearly the bitter end when I had to pay the extra $300+ to get possession (and they'll probably be new fee hikes for the new year).

Anyway, I got the terms sort of mixed up in the previous post, so I just wanted to straighten that out. Hopefully I won't have to do this again for a very long time!

 

[landlord51]

I assume the duration of time to get a tenant out in other state and counties is shorter because there is no appeal period or the appeal process is different? But all of the 'waiting' is for

1- getting the hearing scheduled (1-2 weeks)
2- appeal period (11 days)
3- time sheriff takes to give notice and how much s/he allows tenant to move out (8-10 days)

 

[FarmerJ]

Im sure one thing thats pretty consistant in any state when it comes to getting tenants out is how full the court docket is and if its a one horse county like mine (one judge handles ALL matters) in the very early 80s I remember filing fees for Unlawful detainer hearings being as little as 27.00. which really helped contribute to a docket becoming so full and also the explosion of crack use down in the city helped choke the courts, I knew of some LLs who actually had to wait 5 to 6 weeks to get a hearing alone at one point. This was also about the time that some LLs began to require last months rent which was pretty much unheard of in this region back then. Last i knew up here it was about 350. to file for eviction and then if sheriffs dept served the summons it used to be a deposit of i think 50. and what ever the bal was left over after service wass refunded. Im sure by now its gone up too. writ of restitution , which sherrifs deputys needed to post when a tenant refused to leave after being evicted was 10.( likely more now) I have been able to be in court once 8 days after filing , Ive had more than one tenant fail to show up for eviction summons. anywho got shift duties to do (at work now)

 

[landlord51]

Eekamouse

Be sure to come back and let everyone know what happens with this tenant.

She's gone! The order was for 12:01 AM this morning and she was moving her stuff out last night. The locksmith came and changed the locks; so no drama, no more tricks.

I submitted the bad check complaint form & supporting docs to the district court office and the clerks told me the judge had a quick look at everything and didn't think the DA office would accept it because we didn't have a forwarding address for her. But they sent it to the county DA's anyway. The DA office will get it touch with me if they decide to pursue it. Either way, I did my part in this.

 

[FarmerJ]

This is good news , now in the end the court records might not do it right away but she is gonna be in for a surprise some day when future LLs start using the court records as grounds to reject her. One tenant whom I had to file for eviction against a couple years after It happened ( I won ) i ran into her out in a burb near a bank I still had to go to in a older burb , she told me how hard it had been to find a place to live since the eviction records came up. and she was lucky to find this place ( back in the day it was a very nice but all one brs apt community that had so much trouble renting its units that it began to permit overcrowding , like single tenant with two or 3 kids occupying 1brs just to get them filled) she was polite about it so I was too and only offered that I was glad to see she found a place and it was nice to see her again. (this was a tenant who was late every month , worked two jobs then only came home some times after 1 or 2 am and would be gone by 6a in order to avoid me since she lived above me then was very nasty when I gave her proper notice to move out screaming it was illegal I couldnt do that , I filed when she over stayed) BTW best luck to you re the bad check , no way to know how that will go but if it comes up perhaps part of any criminal court action against her could include a offer to ask the court to expunge the eviction record if she paid your court cost to get her out and the bad check money from her to get charges were dropped.

 

[landlord51]

hey, thanks, Farmer. I filed once for chronically late rents and then ended up negotiating with them but then regretted it because after the 2nd month they started again with partial rents. I'd get the whole rent by the end of the month plus their late fee, but I didn't want to be bothered by the bookkeeping, you know? My log sheets are fairly simply and when people pay me in 2 or 3 payments, it's, well, 2-3x more bookkeeping, trips to the bank, etc. It can easily monopolize your time when people start doing that. But if someone should do it every month, it really should not be tolerated.

Anyway, yeah, I can't even guess what might happen with that bad check, or my guess is, it will be ignored or thrown out because I can't provide a current address. Also, I got the feeling that the county DA, which is fairly high volume, suburb of philly, would be in hotter pursuit of forged accounts, which I hear people are generating them and endorsing them online. But a person with no criminal background, who is just slick and elusive is too hard to track down and not running a huge operation. Anyway, I'll wait and see...

 

[applecruncher]

only offered that I was glad to see she found a place and it was nice to see her again.

Ha!

Landlord51, glad she is gone. Good riddance.
Not sure, but couldn't you report her to ChexSystems or one of those services? I hear they can at least make it hard for the person to get another checking account.