Articles — evictions

It's often confusing for landlords to figure out when a tenant has abandoned or surrendered a rental unit and when they need to go through the eviction process. This video gives some ideas on how to best deal with the confusion. Enjoy! Here's the summary on abandonment: The safest move is always to go through the eviction process unless the tenant returns keys or gives you a written statement that you can take possession of the property. That said, when there are enough indicators that the tenant has abandoned the property, you may choose to take possession without going through...

On October 13, 2017, the Lexington Herald-Leader ran a front-page article that was nothing more than a hit piece against Lexington's private rental industry. The article's purpose, other than perpetuating a false narrative against landlords, was to promote a report released by the Lexington Fair Housing Council titled Locked Out: Foreclosure, Eviction and Housing Instability in Lexington, 2005-2016. You can read the report in its entirety here. You'll likely be appalled at the report's tone that landlords are the problem and at its suggestion that landlords profit from evictions and exploit the eviction process for personal gain. In short, the...

Last January, I published an article, linked here, on dealing with partial payments of rent from tenants. The issue of partial payments is largely governed by KRS 383.675 in URLTA areas. KRS 383.675 reads as follows: Acceptance of rent with knowledge of a default by the tenant or acceptance of performance by him that varies from the terms of the rental agreement constitutes a waiver of the landlord's right to terminate the rental agreement for that breach, unless otherwise agreed after the breach has occurred.  Three Options for Handling Partial Payments In my earlier article I described the three options...

Video Course announcement from Stephen Marshall on Vimeo.

If you’ve read many of my articles on evictions, you know my mantra: Details Matter. A simple miscalculation can easily lead to an eviction case being dismissed, and I see it happen almost every time that I go to court. In eviction cases, sequencing is everything. Here’s the proper sequence in a non-payment of rent case: tenant fails to pay → landlord gives notice → tenant fails to pay → notice expires → landlord files eviction But what happens to our sequence when the tenant wants to make a partial payment? Three Options for Partial Payments In that scenario, the...