When you need to give some kind of legal notice to your tenants, it’s important to serve the notice properly, in alignment with federal and state landlord-tenant laws. If a notice isn’t served properly, there can be consequences.
For example, if you fail to serve a proper eviction notice, your case will likely be dismissed, and you’ll need to start over by correctly serving the initial notice from the start. It’s also possible that notices served incorrectly can cause a judge to rule in favor of your tenant, especially if the notice itself contains illegal requests.
To protect your business, it’s crucial to ensure that all of your notices are legal and served correctly.
The following tips will help you stay on top of this important task.
1. Consult with an attorney first
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Before sending any notices to your tenants, make sure they are iron-clad. The best way to know is by consulting with an attorney. You don’t need to do this before sending each and every notice, but it’s a good idea to at least have an attorney look over your legal notice templates to make sure they are properly constructed.
It’s also wise to ask for advice when filling out the details for each type of notice. For example, there are a handful of different eviction notices, and each one has different requirements. You can only give someone a three-day notice to cure or quit for certain reasons, like lease violations, and in some states, you can’t ask a tenant to move out at all without a legally valid reason.
There are also legal requirements for how you need to serve notices. For instance, some states require you to deliver the notice in person, or tape the notice to the door in a conspicuous location and mail a copy to the tenant using certified mail. If you don’t mail the notice, it won’t count.
Knowing when and how to serve legal notices is critical, and talking with an attorney will help you get it right.
2. Refer to your lease agreement
Anytime you send a notice to a tenant, it’s a good idea to reference the relevant part of your lease agreement. For example, say your lease forbids smoking on the property, and you want to give your tenant a notice to stop smoking on the porch. You’ll want to remind the tenant that their lease explicitly forbids smoking by quoting the lease directly.
Hopefully, you have a solid lease in place that you can reference. If you don’t, then it’s time to update your lease agreements. If you have any month-to-month tenants, you can update the lease with one month’s notice. Otherwise, you’ll need to wait until the lease term has ended to implement changes.
3. Be clear with your language
There are some things that need to be written in legalese, but try to make your legal notices easy to understand. If you need to use legal terms, use layman’s terms in parenthesis so your tenants can easily understand what’s being communicated.
4. Get a signature when delivering a notice in person
It’s important to get a tenant’s signature to acknowledge they’ve received a notice when you deliver one in person. If you tape the notice to their door instead, make sure you take a photo of the notice on the door before you leave.
If you mail the notice and your tenant refuses to sign for the certified piece of mail, or they tell the postal carrier to return it to the sender, keep the proof that you mailed the notice if you end up in court.
5. Keep good records
Throughout the entire process of serving notices to tenants, keep records of everything, including the date and time you serve notices in person or tape them to a door, and take photos of any notices you tape to a door so your tenant can’t say they found it folded up on the ground. If your tenant won’t sign a paper to acknowledge receipt of a notice, make that note. Hopefully, your tenants aren’t problematic and will be cooperative, but there’s no telling what they might do later, so don’t skip the documentation.
Prepare ahead of time to stay in line with the law
A little bit of preparation will go a long way in terms of keeping you in alignment with the law. So take the time to consult with an attorney to ensure you serve all legal notices to your tenants correctly. It will protect your business and make life easier in case you end up involved in a lawsuit.