You sent the tenant a noncompliance notice. The tenant failed to remedy within the specified time frame of the notice (i.e. the tenant didn’t pay rent within 5 days of a 5 day nonpayment notice.) You send the matter over to our office to file an eviction. A court date is set, but before the court date occurs the Tenant turns in the keys. What do you do?
You have two options. 1. Once an eviction action has been filed, you may continue with the case even if the Tenant turns in keys. (Please note you must accept the keys; you cannot refuse to retake possession.) Let our office know that the Tenant turned in keys. In court we will proceed with the monetary judgment as appropriate and confirm, if the tenant is present, that keys were returned. Once the case has been filed you have incurred court costs and attorney’s fees so we often recommend this option. However, you may proceed with option two. 2. If a tenant turns in keys we can always dismiss the case. There are a variety of reasons you may choose to dismiss the case and keep the eviction off the Tenant’s record, and we are happy to weigh the options with you in your particular case. We do, however, want to be sure that you have possession back before we dismiss the case. Make sure when the Tenant turns in the keys that all occupants have vacated the property. If additional occupants are in the property and have not vacated it could require filing a new case if we dismiss the current case to remove these other tenants. If the case is not dismissed we should be able to remove any lingering occupants with the writ of restitution.
If you send the Tenant a noncompliance notice and the Tenant hands in keys before we file an eviction action, we cannot proceed with the eviction action. The matter for any financial losses becomes an issue collections. Of course, if there are lingering occupants we may file as discussed above, but surrender of possession stops an eviction action from being filed.