Pam Kazlauskas (00:07)
Hello and welcome to Tuesday Tips. I'm Pam and today we're going to be talking about lease enforcement. The biggest thing to remember when you are talking about lease enforcement is consistency. All lease violations should be addressed fairly and according to policy and all of the same type of lease violations have to be enforced the same way. You want to make sure you're treating everybody fairly and you want to make sure you're following policy.

You want to be aware of HUD guidelines and make sure you're following applicable law, things like fair housing and VAWA and your state law regarding lease termination and eviction. Non-compliance with a lease is contagious at a property. If one resident is allowed to be non-compliant, that can quickly spread. And that's especially true with regard to non-payment, unauthorized guests, unauthorized pets.

and tenant damages or unauthorized improvements to their unit. Keep in mind that everything we're talking about today is a general tip and trick. It's not a requirement unless I specifically say it's a requirement. I don't want you to get the impression that you have to do things this way. does have some things that it says you must do, but there are also a lot of things that HUD says you may do. Always follow applicable law.

the HUD guidelines and your company policies. When you're dealing with tenants who are violating their lease, another big part of that is safety. Remember that if you're dealing with an agitated tenant or somebody who's very, very angry, your first priority is to look out for your own safety and the safety of other residents. We generally see eviction as a last resort in our business.

It's expensive for one, a complicated eviction can regularly run $10,000 or more. It's stressful for both managers and residents. And it generally is going against our goals. We're in the business of housing people, not taking housing away from them. So whenever we can, we want to make sure that we can resolve these without needing to go to eviction.

For HUD guidance, you're going to see HUD say things you must terminate tenancy for and then may. So you must terminate tenancy for ineligibility in a prac property that's a remaining family member in that type of property. The reason is in most properties, section eight and similar, when you have somebody who's no longer eligible for subsidy,

you're going to terminate their subsidy and send them to market rent. Pracs do not have a market rent. So it's, they're eligible or they're evicted. If somebody was erroneously admitted to a property, but they're on the lifetime sex offender registry, HUD wants you to try and evict them. That may not work under state law, but HUD tells you to try and evict.

Almost all other issues that you're going to find are going to be a may evict or terminate assistance, not terminate tenancy.

Some of things that HUD says you may evict for, remember not must, are material noncompliance with the lease, and that's defined in your lease and in your house rules. The failure to supply needed information, fraud, and we're not talking about tenant error, we're talking about intentional fraud, which is somewhat hard to prove. That can also be criminal, if you can actually prove fraud. Non-payment of rent, criminal or drug-related activity.

and other good cause as defined by law. Now this is not the same as telling you you'll win a court case. This is just HUD saying you may follow the law and evict for these things if you have cause.

First step with non-payment, which is one of our biggest issues, is the new HUD notice. You have to send that before you take any legal action. It's a 30-day notice that you will terminate for non-payment. Then there's different state laws regarding any further notices. Sometimes you can go right to eviction. Sometimes you have to send other notices. So you're gonna remember to follow both HUD and your state requirements.

Remember to include information on reasonable accommodations and VAWA.

with nuisance evictions without an imminent threat. So noise, pets, things like that. You want to be sending a notice. You're going to clearly state what the issues are. Generally speaking, you're going to avoid identifying specific witnesses or other parties where possible. Once they go into court, they do have a right to have some of that information. But generally, we are going to avoid identifying those people.

⁓ You are going to set or offer a meeting to discuss those things. You're going to advise of how to cure the violation or any information that you need from that person. You're going to give them a clear deadline for compliance and you're going to make sure to include reasonable accommodation and VAWA information.

with an imminent threat. Always, always, always try to avoid a direct confrontation with someone who is agitated or threatening. Lock the office or leave the property if you need to to be safe. You're gonna follow your company policy on that. Contact law enforcement if you need to and advise your supervisor and call an attorney as soon as it's safe to do that.

So what happens when you get to court? The way to make a good case is to make sure that you have enough documentation to prove to a judge that that tenant has violated the lease sufficiently to lose the ability to live there. Generally speaking, you're going to focus on what you can prove the best or what your strongest case is. Lawyers will often tell you, let's not go on this. We'll go on the non-payment because non-payment is generally your strongest case.

with witnesses. It's always good to have witnesses with nuisance evictions. Don't promise residents who are witnesses that they can always remain anonymous because they can't if we're going to get some tenants out of the housing. For instance, if somebody was yelling and screaming at a tenant, I need that person to be able to come in and testify. You can certainly tell them that if they're unwilling to testify,

you may not be able to act on their complaint because you need to be able to prove. And if somebody's being evicted, they have the right to have their attorney examine whatever the complaints are. Remember also that some states have a mediation requirement. So sometimes you're to have to go into a mediator to talk to them before you would go into a trial. The goal of that mediation is to work out a solution that

preserves housing for the tenant or doesn't end up with them having an eviction on the record.

Make sure you're asking your attorney about what to expect in court if you've never been in court. You can ask your attorney to educate witnesses about what to inspect in court. ⁓ Court is very intimidating if you've never been in there, so having your attorney walk them through what they can expect may help to mitigate some of the nerves. When testifying, there's a real tendency in court to expand upon the answer.

Remember in court to answer the question asked. Don't give any more or less detail. You never want to distort facts. If you're asked a yes or no question, the answer is yes or no. If you don't recall, you can say, don't recall. But generally speaking, you don't want to give an answer that addresses anything other than the question you're asked. Avoid getting upset in court. It's hard in court to

Stay calm and serene when somebody is saying things about you Avoid getting upset by something that's said in court because everybody's going to have their chance to speak. If you hear something that either is untrue or that needs to be clarified, you can always address that to your attorney and they'll tell you how to handle it or they'll stand up and address it in court.

General court etiquette. Generally speaking, you are looking at in a professional address when you go into court, you're gonna provide all relevant documentation to your attorney in advance. Arrive early for your court date and understand that even if your court time is nine o'clock, you may be there all day. Make sure you're silencing or shutting off your phone and prepare options with your attorney. Talk to your attorney beforehand if you're gonna be meeting with a mediator.

so that everybody knows kind of where you will go, where you won't go, some things that are off the table. It just makes those negotiations go smooth.

Pick your battles is one of those things that we all learn in housing. Some things aren't worth fighting in court. Your attorney will tell you what your best grounds are in court and some things that you may want to not bring into court because they're not as well documented. There are some things that somebody might say that aren't worth arguing about in court. Some things are bothersome and they're not lease violations.

You always want to be focusing on the essential obligations of tenancy and HUD requirements, interference with management's ability to run the property, and interference with others' rights or others' safety on the property. Let the rest go. And your attorney is your best source here. They're going to tell you what your best grounds are, how to conduct yourself in court, what to expect.

and they really are going to be a great resource for you. So make sure that you're comfortable with the attorney that you're using.

One of things we often find coming out of court is a stipulated agreement. The stipulated agreement is a court document and it may allow the tenant to stay in the housing for a length of time or permanently, but it preserves a landlord's rights. So it's gonna do things like we're gonna stipulate that the rent is gonna be paid by ex-date. It's gonna set conditions that must be met. It's gonna set deadlines.

It generally permits a landlord if the agreement is broken to come back to court without going through that whole process again. You're going to be talking to your attorney and your supervisor for guidance on whether that's a possibility. It's normally only used for non-threat lease violations, but that's going to be up to you, your supervisor and your attorney to decide whether or not that's something you're willing to do. And it's also going to be up to whether or not the court allows that.

So some resources for landlord tenant law. The 4350.3 chapters three, six and eight applicable state law, fair housing and VAWA requirements are very important. Your company policy and your attorney and supervisor are all the resources that you're gonna be looking to if you have a tenant violating the rules. Remember Navigate cannot advise you on whether you should evict somebody or settle or mediate.

we can solely advise you on what HUD guidelines say. For any of those other things, you're gonna be looking at your attorney and your corporate resources.

So that's gonna do it for this Tuesday tip. If there's anything you'd like to see, please let us know. You can email Vicki or me and have a great day. We'll see you on the next one.