Probable drug dealer in park

I have a park in SC.

One of my tenants has been arrested for selling drugs to an undercover police officer.

The tenant claims he innocent.

The tenant owns his home, and he pays lot rent only. He pays on-time and has not caused problems in the past. He is on a month-to-month contract.

Gut feeling tells me not to renew his contract. He has not been found guilty of dealing drugs yet, but even so, I think being busted for selling drugs to an undercover police officer is pretty condemning.

What do you recommend? Non-renew his lease, but do not give him a reason? I do not want to tell him that I am not renewing his lease because of drugs, because he has not been found guilty yet.

Thank you.

It’s a hard decision when you haven’t had any other complaints. Actually busted selling to an undercover officer seems pretty conclusive unless there is possibly more to the story.

If your gut says non renew then I would do it.

Good luck

I would not evict until he is convicted. In the interim I would inform him that if convicted you will be proceeding with an eviction. With luck he will put the place for sale and solve your problem but you should expect to evict.

Waiting for the conviction would be a safe play, but I would non-renew without reason instead of evicting. You may end up evicting if tenant does not vacate the property, in which case you may need to show the tenant broke Park rules by getting convicting of drug dealing.

Assuming you’re working off a police report and not Park gossip. Maybe you inherited this tenant at purchase, but am surprised passed the initial background check as lots of repeat offenders in this space.

You may want to consider letting the legal process play out and continue to let him rent… if he’s guilty and convicted, he’ll likely go to jail for a few months or longer. If he isn’t guilty, he’ll continue to be a good paying tenant. If the latter, you may want to start conversations now about buying his home.

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I’d do a quick background check on him to see if he has past offenses. If he does, I would non renew without explanation.

90% of the time I agree with Greg as he’s very knowledgable, but I’d disagree on telling him that you’ll evict if found guilty, just no reason to go down that road.

Do the background check and let us know what you find.

Somewhat agree with Coach. There’s a bit of a grey area on being required to have authorization to perform background checks so it might be worth a call to your attorney to see if this is a worthwhile endeavor. Clearly, there is a difference of opinion here. Whenever I get stumped by a situation like this, I usually put in a call to my team members who would be affected. i.e. attorney, insurance company. After all, this type of question is why they are there.

If found guilty he already knows he is going down the road I am just letting him know he’s not welcome back. I’ve dealt with drug dealers before and I find the direct approach makes my job much more interesting/fun. You do not want to have to deal with the situation after he has gone to prison so giving him the opportunity to sell before hand makes everyone’s life easier. Additionally if he is going to put up a fight the sooner you start the better.