We inherited a mobile home park in Granite Falls NC and there are several tenants who haven’t paid lot rent in several months. We have sent letters warning them to catch up but some have ignored us. What are the next steps we should take for eviction?
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Given it is an inherited property, with you as a new owner, ‘several’ tenants not paying rent and NC’s expansive landlord-tenant eviction laws I would lawyer up and hand the process over to a good real estate attorney. Gather up your leases, payment histories and copies/records of your communication and have a sit down with your attorney. Ask them to send your delinquent tenants letters of representation and intent. Don’t accept any partial payments or make any ‘deals’ on reduced rent to catch up until you visit with your attorney.
It may be expensive and so seemingly unnecessary if they would just 'act responsibly’- but you are setting the deck for every other resident in your park you are not to be taken advantage of.
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Our process is eviction notice on the 6th. Payment plan by the 10th. If no agreed payment plan, we file eviction. If they are months behind, you need to start getting aggressive quickly. I would file evictions on all of them and after filing, hopefully you can settle out of court on most. That will get their attention.
Last property we bought a guy was 9 months past due to the prior owner. During the purchase process we were in consultation with the seller on what do do, but his approach was to keep texting “this is serious, please pay,” and it did not work. When we closed on the property, we had the tenant’s illegally tagged car towed the same day, and eviction was filed the next day. We ended up giving him $2000 for his home before court if he agreed to leave within 5 days. He agreed, we got title, and put the home in a dumpster with an excavator. Now we have a brand new home onsite collecting over $1400 per month with a much better tenant.
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…so if the tenant refused to work something out would you put a lien on the mobile home? Is there a way to shut off his water? I’m a newbie coming from the world of single family residence… so forgive my naivety.
No need to lien the home. It is illegal to shutoff the water. Just file eviction - same as in SFR, Once he is out, you can repossess the home through whatever legal channels exist in your state, if you wish.
Consistency is really key when taking over a property with existing payment issues. Since your initial letters were ignored, moving forward with formal notices as allowed by NC law is usually the best way to show you are serious about enforcing the lease terms.
I will tell you the next steps, but more importantly I will tell you not to keep sending letters because you are wasting time. If they ignore the first, what is the point of the second? Before filing eviction, we call, text, and email, and the purpose is to engage in dialogue potentially for a payment plan or cash-for-keys and to gage how responsive they are. If they ignore us, it means they don’t care to make good on their payment. At that point, we have decided there is no chance of recovery and file eviction.
You need to file after the first late payment and definitely before the 2nd late payment. The date you file is flexible, but we like to wait until the 10th because some people perpetually pay late, but they do pay regularly. The steps are this:
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file eviction at your courthouse; or
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hire an attorney to file eviction at your courthouse.
It’s really that simple. There is not use waiting for a ghosted tenant to finally reply to you. If you are in the business, you need to learn how to do this ASAP because churning bad tenants is an ongoing issue and not a 1 time exception.