Tenants in Breach of Contract on rent to own home

[Kim1119]

Hello,
I have a question that I was hoping maybe you could answer. *In June 2012, my husband and I put our home of 15 years up for sale in Virginia. *When the house didn't sell after a few months and we already found a home closer to my husband work, our realtor suggested trying to advertise the home as a lease to own home. *We found a family right away and they agreed on purchase price along with the lengthy contract stating all terms and conditions. *One item was if they could not secure financing by a certain date we can evict with a 15 day notice. *After we negotiated the contract 2 more times to give extension they ignored our calls, emails and text messages in reference to the March 21st date to provide documentation that they have loan in progress *and April 1st to close. *They not only ignored this date but failed to pay rent which was the 7th time they were late paying. *We provided them with eviction notice and they refused to leave and said they need 60 days. *We tried being reasonable giving them till the end of May, thats 45 days but they refused. *We are now going to court after filing an unlawful detainer for breach of contract and back rent late fees. *We dont know what else to do to get them out, contract was very clear that they signed and financially this is hurting us. *Do we need a lawyer? Is contract all we need? Our realtor handled everything till this point. *We just want them out so we can sell and move on. *Can judge go by the 15 days? By time we go to court it will be May 9th and 30 days since we gave original notice not to mention they will owe april and into May with late fees.

 

[FarmerJ]

What would happen is once they are served the summons then in court they will have to deny and prove your claim of breach is not true or they will have to say it is true. But unless there was a clause in that contract that went against your states laws ( who wrote that contract up ? ) then it should be pretty straight forward and if they cant pay off the court would set a date to be out by and if they are not then you would have the right to follow thru with (in my area its called ) writ of restitution which sheriffs deputies would in the end be able to use to carry out the courts order and bodily remove them if they had to.

 

[Kim1119]

Our realtors office drew up contract, they also handle rental properties so everything seemed ligit as far as the laws. Their lease was up in October, 2013, at that point it was month to month as far as renting however they were in the purchase agreement until Jan 2014 for a requested extension on their behalf. In January they requested another extension to fix a credit issue and we agreed to March 21st for proof of getting a losn with April 1st being closing aling with the addendum we added if purchase agreement is breached it would be up to borh parties to agree on a month to month rental agreement. We chose not to continue for 2 reasons, 1 we need to sell, we do not want a rental property, 2 they have been late 7 times with rent. We went off the 15 day notice but was willing to work with them, they were furious and started to bash house and I received text messages saying they did not want house and started name calling and called me several times ranting and hung up. We gave extension to end of May which was actually 47 days at time it was given but they refused and we even said we would waive Aprils late fee to help them but they said we were trying to bribe them. We had a document along with the eviction that was a purchase release for and they refused to sign because it released the deposit being held in escrow back to us. This has become a nightmare!

 

[FarmerJ]

So do you have a court date set for eviction ? Id suggest if you do not then just live with the cost of using a attorney to get them into court and properly evicted , yes i know its moola but seriously you have not done a very good job handling this and there comes a time to stop the bleed if it doesnt on its own and it sure appears this is the time.

 

[Kim1119]

Yes, its in a few weeks. The realtor worked with their lawyer to draw up papers and we did everything as directed per contract. They just dont want to pay or leave. They think they can decide whn to go by asking for 60 days and not pay rent either.