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Follow our live trial eviction of a habitual delinquent tenant #evictions101.
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Follow the landlord on twitter: @justinbez
Follow the Attorney – Steyn & Steyn: @CilnaThe story starts in May 2012; Joe*, the tenant (not her real name) spins a heartfelt story to Justin, the landlord of why he should not perform credit checks on her – she admits she does have blackmark but wants to “open and honest”, she has “learnt her lesson” and “promises to be a good tenant”
Naively, Justin takes Joe for her word – the tenant has
admitted to being blacklisted, he decides it is unnecessary to perform a credit
check on the tenant; “Why bother if the tenant was up-front?”
Now a difficult 6 months later, first Joe paid late (in
month one 2 weeks late, in month two and three 3 weeks late, in month four 2
weeks late); but in month 5 and 6 Joe has not paid at all. It’s not that Joe
isn’t communicating – she emails Justin regularly with “heartfelt apologies and
long sad stories with promises of payment” which are never followed through.
Finally Justin performs the long overdue credit check;
clarity sets in. Joe was upfront, she did have a blackmark against her name –
in fact she had 11 blackmarks on the one credit bureau, 9 blackmarks on the
second credit bureau and 12 months of non-payment of rent culminating in a
R48500 default on the TPN rental credit bureau.
Justin acknowledges, had he performed the credit check in
May he would never have rented to Joe. Too late. Now he must take action.
The eviction process is quite technical and already a timely
process due to legal mandatory time requirements (20 business days to cancel;
14 days to issue summons etc.), Justin is already 2 months down on non-payment
of rent, it is the middle of December, the last thing he needs is an attorney
who delays the eviction due to non-compliance with the technicalities – a
specialist eviction attorney must be sourced:
Enter Steyn & Steyn Attorneys. When you have a serious
complaint you call a specialist.
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