Question from Keith Evans:

I'll make this as short as I can while still trying to provide the relevant facts. Our tenant has been a pain about making complaints, talking to legal aide and threatening to take us to court to have the upstairs tenants removed, etc. for the past year. Though he hasn't made a FORMAL complaint, we know if we give him notice he'll call it retaliation.

Just recently he's putting every obstacle he can think of to keep our maintenance man from doing repairs required by the building inspector. We wrote him a letter requesting "open door" policy to come in and do repairs since he does not have a phone and we can't pinpoint the maintenance man's schedule to the hour. We had no objections before hand, but now that he has been in there a few times to do the necessary work, he's been talking to legal aid, advised to sue and withhold rent because:
(1) he was not given proper (24 hour) notice. The lease states we may enter at any and all reasonable times for repairs, etc.

(2) his possessions have been removed. We sent him notice both in September and November to clear out the back commons area due to fire escape hazard or we would be forced undertake it ourselves. (He uses it as a storage area for a friends (idle) washer, empty boxes, crates, etc. He says we had no right to ask him to clear out that area. (It's been known as his "laundry room" (no facilities), but the upstairs tenant has access to it through her "laundry room" door and would need the outside exit in emergency). He said the letter was not legal and we had 24 hours to return the stuff. We returned it immediately as it had not yet been brought to the dump.
We would like to just get rid of him. He's been there since we bought the building 10 years ago. The last lease we have is a month to month dated September, 1992. I think we have cause without being accused of it being a retaliatory measure because (1) he didn't clean out the back commons area when served notice to do so and (2) just today our suspicions of his drug dealing (small time, I'm sure) has been confirmed when our maintenance man witnessed a transaction in the apartment. The lease states "THAT tenant will keep and observe all laws and ordinances relating to the premises and the case and use thereof. I'm thinking this will cover the fact that he's using the premises for an illegal act. Does there even NEED to be a clause covering illegal activities??

Questions:

(1)Are his lawsuit threats against us valid?

(2) Should we:
(a) let him know we're aware of his drug dealing and serve notice hoping he'll just leave and not pursue his threats against us and/or make us go through the eviction procedure, (clean out his stuff and clean up his act in the meantime), and in that case WOULD OUR EYE/EAR WITNESS BE SOLID?

(b) Report him to the police BEFORE serving him notice so that the illegal act is "validated" before serving him notice?
(3) Under the circumstances (drug) do we need to give him a 30 day notice, or can it be more like a 3 days notice because he "violated the lease"? He thinks he has us where he wants us. He and we are all aware that a landlord has to tread carefully and "has no rights". We think he may not really have a case against us, though and just want to get rid of him the quickest and easiest way we can.

Answer By William Bronchick:

The quickest way to get rid of a tenant is to bribe him. I am not familiar with your state's particular landlord-tenant code, but mine (CO) permits a landlord to terminate a lease upon repeated "minor" lease violations. In any event, you still may be able to terminate his lease based upon his violations of the law.

My advice is to speak with a local, professional landlord-tenant attorney (one who does it for a living) and ask for a fee quote. Take this quote to the tenant and offer it to him in cash. Tell him you will pay him or the attorney, but you prefer to evict him because it will give you more satisfaction. I'm kidding . . . tell him you would prefer to settle out of court. Give him 24 hours to think about it, then get moving on it.
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Disclaimer: The foregoing is not intended to be given as legal, financial or tax advice, but intended for instructional use only. If you require legal, financial or tax advice you should seek the assistance of a qualified professional.

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