When a tenant is served an eviction notice they must leave the property by the date listed on that notice. If they do not, then after that date you can file for their eviction and ask the court to grant a writ of possession .
This means the sheriff will be sent to physically remove them from your property. But what happens if they don’t leave? It can be a very stressful situation to have an unwanted tenant in your property. Not knowing if they will try and cause problems or damage the property is a major concern for many landlords.
The ptions if you don’t want to go through the eviction process, but instead need them out of your property quickly, are pretty limited. You can try to get them out yourself, but this is not advisable if they are causing you problems. It could result in an altercation and possibly criminal charges against you.
You can try calling the police, but unless they are trespassing or committing a serious crime there isn’t much the police will do. They will more than likely just tell you to go through the eviction process and they will help you when it is complete.
The other option to get them out quickly is to pay them to leave. If you can reach an agreement with them then this could be a good solution for both parties, but once again this would need to be done before the eviction process starts.
If you don’t want to do this, then the only other option is to remove them yourself. Before doing this you would need to serve them with two notices of eviction giving them 14 days each time to leave. You can read more about how to evict a tenant without using the courts here .
Once they have been properly served with two eviction notices, if they still refuse to leave you can send your own bailiffs to remove them from your property. If you hire a company to do this it will be expensive, but it could be more than worth it for the peace of mind of removing an unwanted tenant quickly.
But what happens if they are refusing to leave even though there is no tenancy agreement? You can’t use the eviction process to remove them, so what are your options?
The only choice you really have is to take them to court yourself. This is fairly complicated and difficult for a lay person, but if they are trespassing on your property then this may be your only option. There isn’t much point in taking them to court however if you are going to end up having to pay the fees, which can be very high.
It will all come down to how desperate you are for them to leave. If they are causing significant damage by staying on your property, or threatening violence against yourself or other tenants, then it is worth paying any fees in order to get the problem solved as soon as possible.
However, if they are just refusing to leave and causing no damage then you may want to try other methods such as keeping their deposit or paying them compensation instead of going through the court system.