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Evicting Tenant (mentally ill)

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S

squeak_D

Guest
What is the name of your state? West Virginia

I served a notice of eviction to a tenat December of last year due to damages, and breech of lease. To date the tenant has not completely vacated my building. All of his personal property is still there. Here's the catch. The gentleman has a mental disability. However, he has guardianship over himself. Before renting to him I request documentation with a signature stating he is his own legal guardian, capable of making own decisions, and has the mental capacity to sign into a lease. Two weeks after renting to the guy he caused hundreds of dollars worth of damge to my building. After two weeks I later realized that they weren't honest about the mans mental stability. He turned out to be very aggressive and violent. So an eviction notice was served. This gentleman does not control his own finances and is not responsible for moving his own property. There is an agency that does all this. To play it safe, the day he signed the lease I asked the organization what good does his signature do me if he's not in charge of his own finances? I was able to get a Director to Co-sign his lease since she was the primary person in charge of getting him housing, making all arrangments for moving, ect. I recently had them served and have a court date for this Thursday. What should I be worried about? It was explained to me that even though he has a mentally disability that since he is his own legal guardian, and has the capacity to sign his own lease, that the same rules apply to him as they do to all of my tenants, and that I can evict him by the time set forth within my lease... Any thoughts on this one? Oh and a side note.. I had the woman who co-singed served because she is the one responsible for all of his moving arrangments, set up for rent payment, and so forth.. Since she signed the lease I can legally serve her as well. I felt this was the best thing to do since he has no control over his finances.. I also have elected not to remove his poperty because it wouldn't be fair to him since all of that is supposed to be taken care of by the agency.

Thanks,
Squeak
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
squeak_D said:
What is the name of your state? West Virginia

I served a notice of eviction to a tenat December of last year due to damages, and breech of lease. To date the tenant has not completely vacated my building. All of his personal property is still there. Here's the catch. The gentleman has a mental disability. However, he has guardianship over himself. Before renting to him I request documentation with a signature stating he is his own legal guardian, capable of making own decisions, and has the mental capacity to sign into a lease. Two weeks after renting to the guy he caused hundreds of dollars worth of damge to my building. After two weeks I later realized that they weren't honest about the mans mental stability. He turned out to be very aggressive and violent. So an eviction notice was served. This gentleman does not control his own finances and is not responsible for moving his own property. There is an agency that does all this. To play it safe, the day he signed the lease I asked the organization what good does his signature do me if he's not in charge of his own finances? I was able to get a Director to Co-sign his lease since she was the primary person in charge of getting him housing, making all arrangments for moving, ect. I recently had them served and have a court date for this Thursday. What should I be worried about? It was explained to me that even though he has a mentally disability that since he is his own legal guardian, and has the capacity to sign his own lease, that the same rules apply to him as they do to all of my tenants, and that I can evict him by the time set forth within my lease... Any thoughts on this one? Oh and a side note.. I had the woman who co-singed served because she is the one responsible for all of his moving arrangments, set up for rent payment, and so forth.. Since she signed the lease I can legally serve her as well. I felt this was the best thing to do since he has no control over his finances.. I also have elected not to remove his poperty because it wouldn't be fair to him since all of that is supposed to be taken care of by the agency.

Thanks,
Squeak
**A: yes, here is my thought; where is your attorney?
 
S

squeak_D

Guest
Where's my attorney

Ohhh I have an attorney.. I'm fortunate.. I happend to work for oen of the top law firms in my state. My attorney happens to be a real estate attorney, and owns numerous rental properties. I just wanted others opinions on this forum since everyone here give such great advice:) I was smart too.. I have sooo much documentation on this guy. Pictures of all the damage (on the days it occured), notarized eviction notices, and a whole slew of other things.


Squeak
 

HomeGuru

Senior Member
Re: Where's my attorney

squeak_D said:
Ohhh I have an attorney.. I'm fortunate.. I happend to work for oen of the top law firms in my state. My attorney happens to be a real estate attorney, and owns numerous rental properties. I just wanted others opinions on this forum since everyone here give such great advice:) I was smart too.. I have sooo much documentation on this guy. Pictures of all the damage (on the days it occured), notarized eviction notices, and a whole slew of other things.


**A: ok, then good luck.
 
S

squeak_D

Guest
Met with my attorney again.. We're actually in good standing. I know that this woman is going to fight and say that I can't evict him by the date specified in my lease because he's mentally ill.. However, his mental illness doesn't apply because he is his own legal guardian. I have a document from the orginization saying that he's his own guardian, capable of making his own decisions, capable of entering into a lease agreement (signing his own name), and this means that the same rules that apply to all of my other tenants apply to him as well. It's a shame really.. He's a nice guy, but has a serious anger problem.. He get's violent when he's upset. This now poses a possible liability issue for me with the rest of the tenants. He broke the lease and caused severe damage to the apartment. I had to call the police on him too. He went as far as running across the street and ripping up a cement block from the neighbors yard and through it at one of the staff members.. If that was thrown at one of my tenants I'd be in deep poo doo. They're just using my building as a storage facility. I doubt they even show up to court. The summons was served on the 13th and she had up to 5 days to submit a defense to the allegations. As of today this has not done. The only option left for them is to show up in court. I'm really hoping they do because I would like punitive damages as well.. I cannot have contractors come into the apartment to repair the place. I've learned in the past to NEVER have contractors come in before they move all of their things out.. I want the place completely empty when they're working so there won't be an issues of liability, and they can't say that someone either damaged or stole some of their property. If I'm lucking the judge will see the pictures I have of the damages and award me punitive damages to cover the cost of repairs..

Squeak
 

dequeendistress

Senior Member
He's a nice guy, but has a serious anger problem.. He get's violent when he's upset.This now poses a possible liability issue for me with the rest of the tenants. He broke the lease and caused severe damage to the apartment. I had to call the police on him too
I would simply like to point out that this statement totally contradicts itself.
 
S

squeak_D

Guest
I know that does contradict itself. I guess I should have worded it different:) Trust me it's all very confusing.. It's one big soap opera....
 

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