How to Evict a Voucher Tenant

[Anonymous]

I have a voucher tenant who has not paid her share of the rent for 6 months, was never on time when she did pay.
I know DC tends to be pretty tenant friendly - can I get rid of her now? Or does anyone have recommendations for a reasonably priced realestate lawyer that can help me get rid of her?

[Anonymous]

Tell her that you will report her non-payment of rent to the housing authority (that will make her lose her voucher) unless she moves immediately.

If she is kicked out of the program, it will be impossible for her to get back in.

[Anonymous]

Start the paperwork now. You probably need a landlord tenant attorney if you are going to file.

You have a long road ahead. Make sure you have everything documented and have issued plenty of notices and have copies of them.

[Anonymous]

You can try the Landlord Tenant Center at the courthouse but you will need to have already filed for eviction.

If you want to hire an attorney to do it for you, suggest Michelle Meiner.

[Anonymous]

DCHA doesn’t care. You have to do the notice to quit or vacate and all the regular court stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCHA doesn’t care. You have to do the notice to quit or vacate and all the regular court stuff.

This.

[Anonymous]

It won’t achieve anything. You need to hire an attorney to bring an eviction action. Once you have the writ of eviction there are non profits or the city that will give her the amount she was short. Literally until the Marshals evict her (including st the moment they knock to verify) she can bring it current. The non profit will send you the money before the eviction is complete. You are not entitled to attorneys fees. Likely it will cost you more attempting to evict her than the amount you will collect.

She will repeat this in perpetuity. In theory if she constantly pays late you can terminate her lease on those ground. Good luck finding a judge that will do so. You can appeal and will likely win on appeal. The appeal will take 2-3 years after and run you $25k or so. That is after a year long case in landlord tenant.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Emilie Fairbanks, Eddie Cordone (Blumenthal & Cordone), or Steve Hessler (Hessler & Associates) can all help with this. Whether you need to serve a notice to quit will depend on how your lease is worded and what the specific violation is. I agree with the PP that it's likely in a nonpayment case that the tenant will get you the money at the last minute, then get behind again.

If the tenant's portion is small and they are otherwise ok, really think about if it's worth it to evict. The legal fees, hassle, lost rent from the vacancy, repairs you'll need to do to rent it out again, etc. might mean it's better to just get what you can from the DCHA portion until your tenant moves along.

[Anonymous]

You can also tell her that if she applies for a transfer voucher, you will put her on a generous payment plan for what she owes (to get a transfer, the landlord has to sign that the tenant is current on rent, but that includes being current on a payment plan) and that if she moves out by X date (make it reasonable, since she needs to find a place and get it inspected and deal with DCHA) you will:
* not file an eviction case against her
* forgive up to $X in unpaid rent
* give a neutral reference to prospective landlords who contact you
* transfer up to $X of the security deposit she paid you to her new landlord (this one is risky because she could damage your place...but honestly she can cause damage that exceeds the deposit anyway)

What the Xs are in this equation are up to you and it's worth consulting with a lawyer, but it might be cheaper and faster than landlord-tenant court. The goal here is not for her to lose her voucher, have an eviction on her record, or be miserable. The goal is for her to move and become someone else's issue.

[Anonymous]

Take back the unit/home for personal use and let it sit empty for a year. Will be cheaper and quicker than trying to evict a voucher tenant.

You can take back a home for personal use with 90 days' notice. You need to file everything with the city:
https://dhcd.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dhcd/publication/attachments/Form%2012%20-%2090%20Day%20Notice%20to%20Vacate%20for%20Personal%20Use%20and%20Occupancy%20Final.pdf

And don't try to re-rent it for a year - the city or one of those nonprofits will definitely come try to come after you.

Seriously, the foregone rent will be cheaper than trying to go through the courts and paying lawyers. Don't make this mistake again. You learned an expensive lesson.

[Anonymous]

Battino & Sokolow do a lot of eviction work in DC.

I wouldn't try to retake for personal use. If you give 90 days notice and the tenant doesn't leave (which she probably won't; it takes ages for DCHA to process a transfer request and then she has to find a new place and get it inspected) you'd have to start an eviction case at that point, and start testifying about how you're going to use it personally. Are you going to switch your homestead deduction to the unit? Register to vote there? It's just not worth faking it if you can actually evict for a lease violation, or offer her cash/debt forgiveness o just move out.