Notice to Vacate Letters & How to Use Them Effectively
CLICK HERE to Download our Notice to Vacate & Acknowledgement Letters
Have you ever had a tenant that just won't leave? How, in this new landscape of COVID-19 protocols, court orders, and, in some cases, excuses, are you supposed to get them out?
Generally, the rules Landlords need to follow have not changed. What has changed, however, is the number of excuses tenants can use to overstay their welcome and the length of time it takes to get in front of a judge. Because of these extended timeframes, you want to be extra careful to get everything right the first time to avoid starting all over from the beginning.
What you need to understand when using a Notice to Vacate Letter (don't worry, you're about to get it soon) is something called service of process. This is just a fancy term for saying you can prove somebody got something. In this case, we need to prove your tenant got your Notice to Vacate Letter.
Since most residential properties are rented to individuals, we'll discuss service of process on an individual (there are extra methods for serving businesses).
Generally, the Courts accept service by United States Certified Mail and "personal service." When sending something by Certified Mail, it's a great idea to also send a return receipt. Certified Mail will provide a tracking number and prove that something was delivered. The return receipt will be mailed back to you, often with the addressee's signature.
The caveat to the above is that, with the rise of COVID-19, many U.S.P.S. employees will sign the return receipts with "COVID 19," "C-19" or some other vague signature that would indicate the intended recipient did not actually sign the receipt themselves. As you can imagine, this can bring into question the perfection of the service before the Court. A potential evicted tenant has a strong argument that they were not served otherwise.
That's why we recommending sending your Notice to Vacate Letter by U.S.P.S. Certified Mail with a return receipt (usually costs around $7-$8) AND personally serving the intended recipient.
What's personal service, you may ask? Personal service is a lot like it sounds - personally delivering the documents to the intended recipient or someone over 18 at the residence to accept service on behalf of the intended recipient. The gold standard is when the intended recipient agrees to sign something stating they received the document. Anyone over 18 years of age and not a party can personally serve documents.
In the absence of the above (some people just aren't comfortable serving papers on their own tenants), we recommend posting the notice on the door of the property, and taking a photo with a time stamp to prove it was left there. This is in addition to mailing by U.S.P.S. Certified Mail with a return receipt requested. Another option is to hire a professional process server, which usually costs less than a few hundred dollars.
Doing all of the above helps make your case look better, should you ever need to present it in front of a judge.
We've also included an Acknowledgement of Notice to Vacate you can leave with your Notice to Vacate. Some tenants will voluntarily fill this out & mail it back to you (we recommend leaving them with a prepaid envelope).
This also lets you set the final date, since technically the statute says 30-days from receipt. We recommend adding 10 days to the date the notice was posted on the home, just in case they were away for an extended period of time.