Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Pennsylvania
Tenant left without paying rent...
I own a row house in PA, I rented to a single mom, son, and nanny. Things were great, a couple times bounced a check but was quick to respond. We contacted her 60 days before lease was up that we will re-new lease and rent would go up. She said she would love to stay another year. Then 15 days before lease was up she called and said she would leave because she will buy a house herself. Rent did not come that month and I confronted her about it, she claimed she mailed it in but we never recieved anything. She showed us the Money Order reciept and it was purchased on the 1st, so we let her fix the problem and she said she would get a refund within 30 days. Now she left and gave us a check for the amount she owed for the last month. It bounced and now she disapeared, no fowrding address, she changed all her numbers, no longer works at job....We never asked for SSN, no DOB, just her name and last name. We emailed her but she stopped answering. We stayed with her deposit but she left alot a garbage and a huge water bill...thank god we found another tenant within a week...but now what? what can we do to get our months rent, and water bill we paid? we are upset how she left us, she seemed so nice, fooled us big time!
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Tenant left without paying rent...
The obvious answer is to sue the tenant for what she owes you.
I see two problems you are going to have:
1) You have no idea where she is. To sue some one you have to be able to serve them. So you have to give the constable some place to look.
2) Assuming she can be found and you are successful in obtaining a judgment against her. There's no guarantee that you will get anything as she doesn't seem to have much in the way of assets.
There are ways of finding people but they take time and money. You do have 4 years to go after her but I doubt you want this to be a 5 to 6 year process.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me. The initial consultation is free.
{John}
Re: Tenant left without paying rent...
Let's be practical - you had a security deposit, so how much are you actually out of pocket? As John said, you can't find her to sue her, and if you do, you WILL have trouble collecting. Unless you are out of pocket a lot-o-money, you should be thankful you are not out of pocket more money, and change your procedure, so the tenants put all utilities in their name, and get their D.O.B. and SSN or don;t rent to them.
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