How to Evict a Tenant who is not Paying the Rent

[Patricia]

I paid a deposit and one months rent. but the agency never gave me a contract and a refusing to fix appliances in the aprtment, due to this i am a month behind rent and said im not going to pay until i have a contract and things are fixed. They said they will send someone round to get me out where do i stand??
Many thanks

Dear Mr. Griffiths,

Hello,

Verbal rental agreements are valid by law, so the fact of not having a contract in writing does not allow you to retain the rental fees and consider the rental to be void . Therefore, our advice is that you continue paying your rent as normal, in order to avoid them being in a position to file an eviction order at the courts of justice. Please be aware that you can only be forced to leave the property through a court order.
Initially, you should have made sure that all appliances worked well before you entered the rental, as they may now claim that the appliances have been damaged by a bad use on your side, thus considering you responsible for the repairs.

We see here two options:

1. That you send the rental agency a registered letter ( Burofax ), ideally prepared by an expert solicitor, claiming the rental contract in writing that indicates the initially agreed rental conditions and that they repair the damaged appliances, warning them that if they fail to do it before a fixed date, you will deal with the repairs yourself and deduct the expenses from the rental fees ( make sure you can prove that the appliances were already broken when you entered).
2. The other option that you can consider, in order to avoid future problems and turning your rental into a nightmare due to a tight relationship with the landlord, is to leave the apartment, cancelling the rental and obviously losing your deposit, however, making a written agreement with the rental agency that indicates keys have been returned and that no additional sums will be mutually claimed by either party.

Should you intend to keep the rental, we strongly advice you not to retain the rental fees and be up to date with the payments.

Regards,

[no name]

i have posted a comment with no reply is there any one their to answer as the replies have stopped or is there another site

[Patricia]

Hello,

Please let me know what is your query. The forum is active and the questions are being replied by forum members.

Regards,

[henry]

hi patriccia i wrote a comment on your forum today with no name . as i can see your active here is my query.i inherited my flat from my mother in madrid 1999 I have a spanish passport but can not speak the language and it remained up until 2 and a half years ago a holiday home. where i visited 4 times a year for a break and to pay my community charges. since then the charges went up from 50 euro to 220 per month as there needs a lot of work on the out side of the building pipes,render and a new roof, so i thought by letting it out to a so called friend from africa would help with the costs. there was no written agreement as long as he paid the community which concludes his water and he pays for the electic gas and phone landline now the works is finished i want it my flat back and six months has passed he refuses to go and threatens with the police if i enter the flat my room is there with all my things i have read up on the legal proceedings and it looks like i am stuck what can i do . i have the e mails saying he wants to go but he says he cant find no where and now i am not getting a penny , surely he is robbing me ,can you help as what i can do

[dana Griffin]

Hello,
I am renting a house for 12 months and pay rent so far for the last 5 months. The house was rented "furnished" but all the furiture was in disrepair so the landlord removed it. He also does not provide gardener or pool maintenance, even though that is part of the contract. He agreed to reconsider rental price in light of these things, but then told me he would not lower the rent. I have not paid the utilitiy bills from the landlord (I am supposed to per the contract), as I feel that I cannot use the furniture and do not get the services per the contract, so the landlord should have to then pay the utilities (they are about 150 euro a month, whereas the rent is 2100). He is threatening getting the government involved. I do not want to go through any evitction proceedings and would prefer moving out instead. My questions are
1. can I be released from the contract before the year term is over, without having to pay the remainder of the year (I have been here 5 months)?
2. does the landlord have the upper hand here and can actually start eviction for non-payment of the utilities even though the rent is paid?
Many thanks for your help on this matter!

[Patricia]

hi patriccia i wrote a comment on your forum today with no name . as i can see your active here is my query.i inherited my flat from my mother in madrid 1999 I have a spanish passport but can not speak the language and it remained up until 2 and a half years ago a holiday home. where i visited 4 times a year for a break and to pay my community charges. since then the charges went up from 50 euro to 220 per month as there needs a lot of work on the out side of the building pipes,render and a new roof, so i thought by letting it out to a so called friend from africa would help with the costs. there was no written agreement as long as he paid the community which concludes his water and he pays for the electic gas and phone landline now the works is finished i want it my flat back and six months has passed he refuses to go and threatens with the police if i enter the flat my room is there with all my things i have read up on the legal proceedings and it looks like i am stuck what can i do . i have the e mails saying he wants to go but he says he cant find no where and now i am not getting a penny , surely he is robbing me ,can you help as what i can do

Hello Henry,

Please accept my apologies for this late reply. If there was no written rental agreement and he has not been paying a rental fee for that time, there is no evidence of a rental taking place. Therefore, you can finally evict him by court order being the first step to go to your property with the police to draw up a report indicating that there is someone living in a property that you own. You will have to prove ownership by providing with a copy of the property deeds. After that,a legal process will take place and a judge will issue a court order of eviction.

Regards,

[Lynne Hopkins]

My tenants have a 22 month contract on rent to buy but they have not paid rent for 6 months. They have left the property and have not been in Spain for 7 weeks. I have emailed them several times with no reply. I have been told that they now work in Switzerland for DOMO Holiday company and have taken a rented apartment in Zurich. They have left behind 2 dogs that I have had to have taken away. I have also emailed DOMO who confirms they work there and asked them to pass on a message for them to contact me. I am yet to hear anything. I have entered the house to look for dog food and have now changed the locks and also thrown away food from the fridge. What else can I do. what can I do now.

[Patricia]

Hello Lynne,

We recommend you to write a letter to the tenants informing that you are taking possession of the house as it is evident it has been abandoned; you can mention that you found the house door to be open and two dogs were left without food so you had to take care of them and even find them a place where they can be take care of. Then wait for a few days to hear from them.

After that there are two possibilities:

• That you appoint a Lawyer to start an eviction process based on the nonpayment of the rent. However, please note that this implies time and legal fees, and that the Judge will have to authorize the final eviction by court order.
• Once you have solid evidence of the actual vacancy of the property (even if the tenants have left personal belongings in the house ) , you can claim before the courts of Justice to repossess the property, mentioning the door was left open, leaving the house in danger of being assaulted and available to burglars and exposed to crime, therefore requesting to change the locks so as to avoid further evil. This is the quickest alternative as well as the cheapest, though it could bring problems if the tenants had just left the property for a few weeks without the intention to vacate it on a permanent basis.

I hope this answer is of help.

Best Regards

[Minerva]

Dear Patricia:
I have been unable to pay my November rent because I Have been expecting (for two months now) a bank transfer. I paid my October rent in smaller amounts during the month. I have asked my landlords to use my deposit (it is an unfurninshed apartment) in the meantime. There is now 300 euros owing. I have said that I will either pay in full in early December (new date for transfer is now December 4th) or give notice to vacate on December 31st.
On November 16th, I received two garbled e-mails giving me "notice" to vacate on December 15th. The first said that the apartment was rented from nthat date (for 6 months). The second contradicted the first and said the apartment had been "sold to a family member from the UK". I returned the e-mail restating my original agreement.
Today, the following was dropped off at the gate of my urbanisation:
Total arrears: 300 euros
You have been given notice, in writing on the 16th November to VACATE the apartment on the 15th December 2011, all legal as you understand. We are not interested in youtr letters in which you clearly have been misadvised regarding the "legalities" you have stated. (I wrote to inform them that they could not simply take the law into their own hands - there have been previous threats and I live alone.)
There follows a list of the "itinery": (I think they mean inventory!) all are appliances, and by the way, no inventory was ever given to me.
What I find quite incredible is that attached is a tiny "article" from one of the local free newspapers and of four short paragraphs which says (in summary) the following:
Landlords can now evict non-paying tenants in just 10 days.
After a change in the eviction process, landlords will no longer have to take the case to a judge, a process which often took many months.
They will now be able to get tenants out in 10 days after giving an official written warning.
Etc.

This, they claim in the letter is a statement regarding the "LAW" which was passed some months ago.
They are also insisting that I must give them a date "in the next 10 days" for the apartment to be "checked".

I am sure if this law could simply allow any landlord simply to evict a tenant owing 300 euros and who has made every attempt to pay up to now, it would be posted on the front page, not tucked into a tiny column somewhere inside a newspaper. There is nothing about this on the internet, I've read nothing about it, and even a friend who knows about these things says she knows nothing about it. Times are desperate, and I do sympathise with their difficulty (or did until the threats started), but this would mean thousands living on the street! Surely not?

Can they get away with this? What happens if I stay put? Should I write a registered letter stating my intention to either pay (in full or at least part) or leave at the end of December as I have written above?

Finally, at the gate there is also an Aviso from Sevillana which almost certainly means that they have not paid their electricity bills (all in their name). I have let them know it is there (two days now) but although they were clearly here this morning, they did not pick it up.
I believe all the above is considered "coercion" and that criminal charges may be faced if I am left without electricity (for which I have paid on the date the bill was received every month without fail). Incidentally, in almost three years the rent has never been even a day late.
We do not have a contract. The original signed contract stated that community fees would be paid by the landlords: they have never pÃ*id despite a court order to do so: they owe over 7000 and my access has been severely restricted. I said I would sign a contract IF they would pay what they owed and my rights restored. They have not.
Q: What can I do?
Many, many thanks.

[Patricia]

Hello Minerva,

Please read my comments:

1. You cannot use the deposit to cover the payment of monthly rental fee. This is a clause normally established in a rental contract. Deposits are put down to cover the repairs, pending utility bills and other expenses that have to be covered once a tenant vacates a property, but under no circumstance cover an unpaid monthly rent.

2. The eviction legal process is now shorter, that is true, but not as short as 10 days. A new Law was approved last month that simplifies and reduces the time for tenant eviction processes. It is the Law 37/2011 of 19th October 2011.This new regulation reduces the timeframe and speeds up the process, allowing the landlord to evict the tenant in 3-4 months, as the dates and options are established in the court notification from the beginning, whereas in the past the process had longer stages.
Once the claim has been presented in court, the courts will take a few weeks before they send you the notification. The notification will indicate various options for you: You are given 10 days to either pay the due rent or contest the claim by opposition and allegations; if you do not take any of these options, you are given a date for the court hearing and a date for the eviction. It will be in all probability that the 4th of December you will still be in time to pay the due rent, and you are telling us you will have the money by then. You can read the full text of the Law here: http://noticias.juridicas.com/base_d.../l37-2011.html


3. We recommend you to send them a registered letter ( burofax ) telling them you will pay the due rent in an exact date or you will vacate the property. This document will be useful in a hearing, as there is your intention and promise to pay.

4. We advise you to take legal advice about the electricity issue; if you pay the utility bills, and the owners do not pay, thus leading to the electricity supply being cut off you can take legal actions as they are not complying with their obligation to provide with the dwelling they rented out to you in good conditions. Also the fact that they do not pay the community is stopping you from enjoying the dwelling you rented, so you can also claim this from them ; for instance, as you may be stopped from using communal elements, like the swimming pool, tennis courts, communal parking, etc

5. Verbal contracts are legal as long as the tenant is paying the rent every month, so a rent can be proven.


I hope this information has been of help.

Best Regards,