Evicting a roomate

[KSaleh]

I recently rented a room in my home to an individual on a month to month bases. The first month she was late one week with the rent money. The second month she was short on the rent by two hundred dollars. I gave her a break and told her just to give half of the two hundred that was short the following month. Well on the month that she was suppost to catch up she did not show up to the home. Now its been two weeks since she was suppost to catch up and she still has not shown up. I got a hold of her and told her she needs to find a place to stay. She is claming that by law I need to give her thirty days to move. Is this true????????????????????

 

[Malibu_Barbie]

I recall having performed some legal research on this very issue 2 years ago for a friend who was in the same situation. He and his roommate/lessee had a verbal contractual verbal month-to-month lease, with no notice requirements. From my legal research, I found that the 30-day notice didn't apply in his case.

From what I understand, your lessee was also under no notice requirement agreement, breached her verbal contractual obligation to pay the full amount of the rent, then breached the second agreement in which to pay the arrearage. I see no reason why she cannot be evicted immediately based on the above. If anyone has any other thoughts or legal theories on this, please feel free to post.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I recall having performed some legal research on this very issue 2 years ago for a friend who was in the same situation. He and his roommate/lessee had a verbal contractual verbal month-to-month lease, with no notice requirements. From my legal research, I found that the 30-day notice didn't apply in his case.

From what I understand, your lessee was also under no notice requirement agreement, breached her verbal contractual obligation to pay the full amount of the rent, then breached the second agreement in which to pay the arrearage. I see no reason why she cannot be evicted immediately based on the above. If anyone has any other thoughts or legal theories on this, please feel free to post.

I have a different perspective. Many of the notice statutes are pretty clear and you NEVER want to run afoul of them and early evict someone forcibly. I would say that you definitely want to give notice but you want to make sure you provide the correct notices. A thirty day notice is different although you can send one anyways and you might be able to proceed with summary eviction. This depends upon the rules of your state and jurisdiction. Just because a tenant breaches a lease doesn't mean you have the right to just change the locks. There is a procedure although chances are it won't get her out by the end of the week. In fact, the problem with month to month tenancy is that it could take longer to get someone out by eviction (and costly) and easier by providing a notice both of a breach of lease and also of non-renewal of the lease.