Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Wisconsin

Non-payment of rent under lease

Each state has its own laws relative to the interpretation of real property leases. Therefore, since I am an Illinois practitioner, my response is based on Illinois law.

The questions poses several issues. The first practical issue is whether you wish to have people such as these as renters; the obvious answer should be "no"; the related issue is whether there has been an acceptance of late payments despite the lease terms. This can develop into what has been termed an "issue" or "close question" for the trier of fact to decide. Which is why I would serve a Landlord's Five Day notice as soon as possible, and likewise file suit (Forcible Entry & Detainer action, coupled with a rent claim) as soon as practicable.

Generally speaking, and assuming that you have what is termed a "standard" lease containing "standard" terms, costs of the FE&D are taxed to the renter; practically speaking, if the tenants are judgment proof, or if they will file bankruptcy, your chances of being reimbursed, as they say, are slim to none.

In some markets, property for rent "month-to-month" is sought after as everyone wishes to lock people into a 12 month lease. Why don't you advertise the property as a month-to-month?

Very much state dependent procedure.

I read the IL procedure answer you got and the names and time frames are very different from Mass.; landlord / tenant law is very, very different from one state to another, so you should ask a WI attorney.

However, I have these comments based on MA law. 1) No way can you evict AND get the balance of the payments for rent a) cuz the tenants won't have that money accessible to you but b) because you wouldn't be entitled for rent for the months in which they were out of the place. Those are likely both true statements in your state. If they vacated on their own, even, you would not be entitled to more than a month or so extra rent, assuming you didn't get someone in there in that month, because you have a duty to try to get someone in there to reduce the damages and no court would believe it took, say, 3 or more months to find a new tenant. But if you evict them, you'll get nothing for the time after which they are evicted.

Next issue: who pays? You will certainly have to come up with the money up front but you might in some cases get the tenant held responsible for your eviction and collection costs if the lease has it in there; in MA, though, you can't get the costs of service and of eviction charged to the tenant and such a clause in a lease would be ignored by a judge. Collection costs post-judgment might be reimbursed, but always less than what you pay and usually not the lawyer's fee part of it, only other costs (service, filing fee, constable to grab the person if you were to go that far, etc.). This rule in general is called The American Rule and it says generally that all parties to a lawsuit pay their own lawyers. (The European rules requires the loser to pay both sides; keeps down the frivolous suits!)

Where you already accepted some late payments, those are water under the bridge, probably (called 'waiver'), but if they are actually behind in the rent, follow proper procedure and you can evict. If they have paid late in the past it probably doesn't matter. If they're not behind and they pay late next time you can start an eviction process probably but be warned that the payment of the rent will kill the eviction, at least until the second time it happens (under MA law anyway).

If you sell a house with 'bad tenants' in it, please know that you can get nailed for all sorts of damages, starting with the cost of evicting them and with the rent they didn't pay, etc. I just did that to a seller. It was a violation of one of the standard covenants of the sale. The renters never paid the seller nor the new buyer a dime from the first day they moved in until the present.