2 tenants in home- 1 in jail other possible hold-over

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landlord67

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I have 2 tenants, 1 who is in the home (second signer on the lease)
and the other tenant is currently in jail for 1 year on felony charges. The tenants have failed to pay rent since October 15th, 2008 (they were supposed to have paid the last months rent in full but the leasing company we hired failed to collect the last half and kept telling us that the people "didn't have any money" to pay the rest of it). Ironically, the tenant that is in jail also used to work for this leasing company. The lease is over on October 31st, 2008 however the tenant keeps playing games and says she will be out on a certain date but the dates come and go and she has not left. Now she is saying she will be moving before the lease ends in less than a week but does not have a definite answer when she is moving. She has been offered a free moving truck and help to pack her things but refuses any help from anyone. I fear that she is biding her time and waiting for a formal eviction at which point she will also be a hold-over tenant as of November 1, 2008.

We have new tenants scheduled to move-in but we are at the mercy of this tenant who seems to be financially and emotionally distraught because her daughter (first signer on the lease) is serving 1 year in jail on felony charges.

If the tenant does stay past the duration of the lease w/o our permission
we understand that we are allowed to sue for double the rent and start the eviction process.

We plan to serve the tenant that is still in the home with the eviction and a letter with intent to sue but my question is, can we also serve the tenant who is in jail with the eviciton as well as the letter with intent to sue? For some reason, I believe that the daughter that is in jail could possibly be telling her mother to "ride it out" as long as she can perhaps thinking that we can't go after her (the daughter) because she is behind bars. The tenant that remains there is 66 yrs old, does not have a job and collects SS
but you cannot garnish any SS checks or any type of government checks and chances of getting anything out of her even when a judgement is reached is slim to none. She will just have an eviciton on her record. However, the other tenant will certainly be getting a job once she is finished serving her time and she will have the ability to pay us if a judgement on our favor is reached.

Also, since one of the tenant(s) is in serious breach of contract for being in jail on FELONY charges, what rights do I have for a quicker eviction process even though the other tenant that remains there has a clean record?

Please help, if this tenant decides to hold over, I lose the tenants that were going to be moving in and I will be paying for this tenant to live there for free while she waits to be evicted.

There really should be new landlord-tenant laws for faster evicitons because in this day and age when homes are being foreclosed left and right, it does not seem fair that homeowners have to keep suffering at the negligence of non-paying, system riding tenants. Thank you in advance.
 
I'm sorry to hear about your problem which, obviously, is far from new. There has always been a concern to move out non-paying tenants as quickly as possible but you too need to do what you have to do. I have no idea what state you are in, which is why we have that "JURISDICTION / STATE" part of our question for posting, which I'll make even clearer since some seem to miss it, intentionally or not. You need to follow your state process for eviction which usually begins with a notice, e.g. 3 days, to cure a default in rent. I also don't know what kind of a lease you have and whether you have remedies in the lease.

With regard to what you feel is right and wrong, just because someone is in jail doesn't mean that you can automatically bypass process. It might make a judge less inclined to give the tenant a chance to pay before displacing them from their home. But this is still not the issue - I feel for you, I really do. But you haven't availed yourself of the remedies available to you and start the eviction process by providing the proper notices.
 
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