FAQs

All notices in residential landlord tenant matters must be either hand delivered to the tenant (placed in the tenant or another adult in the unit’s hand) or sent via certified mail. Notices are not properly delivered by posting them on the door. The wording needed in the notice depends on the lease violation. A nonpayment of rent notice must indicate the time frame the tenant has to bring his/her account current (often five days but not always) and provide the full amount due as well as include language notifying the tenant that if the breach is remedied the tenant may be removed by law enforcement through a forcible detainer. Please contact our office for forms as needed.

No. You may not stop utility service which you as the landlord pay for or provide if the tenant fails to pay rent. You must provide the proper notice and proceed with eviction before utilities may be terminated.

In a residential landlord tenant relationship, no. A landlord cannot simply lock out a tenant if the rent is unpaid. The landlord must go through the legal process of retaking possession, often a forcible entry and detainer action with the court. In a commercial landlord tenant relationship, the landlord may be able to change the locks if a tenant has not paid. It depends upon the terms of the lease agreement.

After a residential tenant is evicted through a forcible entry and detainer, you must hold the tenant’s personal property left in the unit for 14 days. You should provide an inventory to the tenant of the items left and may be able to donate the items left after 14 days.

This is a complex question but residential landlord/tenant relationships are governed by the Arizona Landlord Tenant Act and commercial landlord tenant relationships are governed in more depth by the terms of the lease agreement between the parties.

No you may not serve a notice by posting it on the door. The proper service of notice is either hand delivery (as in physically handing it to the tenant, not posting it on the door) or sending it via certified mail. To file your eviction, we need a copy of the certified mailing slip (little green square certified mailing receipt). Posting a notice on the door has no legal effect and is not proper service of the notice. Email is not proper service of a notice. Text is not proper service of a notice.

The first part of the answer is wait for what; a notice gives a tenant an opportunity to correct a lease violation within a certain number of days. You must allow the tenant the full time before taking any additional action against the tenant, such as filing an eviction action. Follow the time prescribed in the notice (i.e. five days, ten days etc.) and if the notice was sent via certified mail allow an extra five days for mailing. It may be less than five days for mailing if you receive a return receipt showing earlier delivery.

If the property falls under the Arizona Mobile Home Act (tenant owns the mobile home and landlord owns the land), we may continue with the eviction. Under the Arizona Landlord Tenant Act, however, acceptance of any payment voids any outstanding notice. A new notice must be sent, and any pending eviction action must be dismissed. If a tenant offers payment while a noncompliance notice is outstanding please refuse payment.

In all notices, you should put as much specific information as possible. In an immediate notice of termination due to criminal activity please describe the crime or incident in detail and give a date and time. However, in addition to the specific details do give a general description of the type of activity such as excess traffic, suspected drug use, disturbing the peace. Furthermore, in a notice for immediate termination, the notice should instruct the tenant that the breach of the lease cannot be cured and he must vacate immediately. For a noncompliance notice, again put dates and times of incidents and describe the noncompliance in detail. If it is a recurring problem you may state it is recurring but give at least a couple of dates and examples of the problem.

The proper notice to give a tenant when the tenant breaks the lease depends on the type of property (single family home, apartment, mobile home, RV) and how the tenant broke the lease (didn’t pay rent, unauthorized occupant, criminal activity). Our forms section has a variety of forms and outlines the basics of when to use each form. You may also reach out to our office for more specific information on what form to use in a particular situation.

No. Anytime you accept a payment it essentially voids any outstanding notices provided to the tenant (both nonpayment and other noncompliance notices). You may only proceed with eviction if you have provided the tenant with a proper notice, not accepted a payment or partial payment, or if you have accepted a payment had all the tenants on the lease sign a partial payment agreement. (Note the Arizona Mobile Home Act has different rules regarding acceptance of payments and notices.)

Provide the tenant with a valid noncompliance notice for failure to allow access. We recommend providing a return date for the repair in the notice. If the tenant refuses access at that time you can pursue eviction pursuant to your noncompliance notice as long as the required time to remedy the breach has passed. Note if a tenant requests a repair, the tenant has consented to entry for the repair. We always recommend giving notice of when repairs will be completed, but if requested by the tenant a full 48 hour notice of entry may not be needed. A tenant need not be present for you to enter if a valid notice has been given.

In Arizona a landlord cannot take more than one and one half times a month’s rent (including any prepaid rent) as a security deposit. This includes pet deposits and deposits for equipment such as garage door openers or key fobs. The tenant may offer more than one and one half month’s rent as security deposit, but the landlord cannot request more than one and one half month’s rent as deposit.

Landlords should take into account the useful life of any item in the home when determining who is responsible for the cost of replacing the damaged item. In this example if the cost to replace the carpet is $10,000 with carpet of equal quality, the tenant would be responsible for 8/10 of the cost. The carpet was only two years old, so you should have had another 8 years of use out of the carpet. The tenant does not owe you for the two years’ service you received from the carpet but for the time you should have been able to use the carpet and were unable to do so.

It depends. The short answer is, if the tenant handed you keys or turned in keys, yes. (This does not necessarily include leaving the keys on the counter.) If the tenant has not turned in keys you may not have legal possession of the property and should not change the locks unless you consult with an attorney.

Any personal property left by the tenant after vacating must be inventoried and held for 14 days. The tenant is entitled to retrieve his or her personal property if he pays reasonable moving and storage fees. If the tenant does not collect his personal property it may be sold or donated. You may be able to dispose of personal property sooner if the tenant turned in keys and advised in writing you may dispose of any items left in the unit.

Yes. Whether during the lease or after the lease has terminated, the landlord is entitled to compensation for damage to the property outside of normal wear and tear. After the lease, deduct damages from the security deposit. During the lease, provide the tenant with a notice of noncompliance requesting reimbursement for the repair. If the tenant does not make arrangements to pay for the damage within the specified time you may move to evict and take a judgment for the amount of the damages.

Under Arizona law, surrender of the keys is surrender of possession. If the tenant does not surrender keys it may be necessary to post a notice of abandonment or proceed with the eviction process to obtain a writ of restitution. Do not assume because a property appear abandoned that the tenant has vacated.

Arizona Landlord Tenant Law states if a tenant requests a deposit accounting (we recommend you send the accounting whether requested or not) you must provide an accounting of how the security deposit was applied and provide the tenant with any refund within 14 business days after you receive possession of the property from the tenant. (This would be 14 days after a writ of restitution is executed, 14 days after the tenant hands in keys, or 14 days after you retake possession based upon a notice of abandonment.) The law indicates you must send this notice via regular first class mail. We recommend sending it via certified mail. It should be sent to any forwarding address provided by the tenant. If no forwarding address was provided, it should be sent to the last known mailing address for the tenant, which may be the rental property.

At times we receive a request to dismiss after the eviction hearing. At this point we cannot dismiss the case because we already have a judgment. A dismissal occurs prior to the hearing. After a hearing we can file a motion to set aside the judgment, but there is an additional fee for this motion. While we make every effort to dismiss a case, if the request for dismissal is not received until the day of hearing we cannot guarantee the case will be dismissed. If our attorneys are in hearings they may not get the message until after court. (We can file a motion to set aside the judgment if the case is not dismissed.) We can also file a satisfaction of judgment after a court hearing if a tenant pays what they owe. There is no charge to have our office file a satisfaction of judgment.

Under the CARES Act we must send a different notice for nonpayment of rent if the property has a federally backed mortgage (in Pima County only). (We have sent out memos previously on how to determine if you have a federally backed mortgage; please let us know if you need a copy.) If we file for court with the wrong notice the case may be dismissed and you are in violation of Federal Law under the CARES Act.

When we prepare and file your eviction, we must include a copy of the lease, notice and proof of service of the notice (certified green slip if applicable). If these documents are sent to us as photographs, we must convert them to PDF before filing. With repeated conversion of a photo to a pdf the clarity of the document decreases. If the Judge cannot read the notice because of poor copy quality, we could lose the case.

There are many factors that influence how long an eviction case may take, but for nonpayment of rent in Arizona generally a case can be completed from initial notice to the Constable removing the tenant in about a month.

When an eviction action is filed in ARizona, the tenant must be served with notice of hearing within 24 hours of the issuance of the summons/notice of hearing. In many cases the tenant may be served by posting the court paperwork on the door and sending a copy via certified mail to the tenant. The landlord need not take any steps beyond the tenant being served to notify the tenant of the court date. (Our office handles the service of the complaint and summons.)

While your attorney can present quite a bit of information to the court in eviction actions, the attorney cannot testify for you. There are occasions where the tenant may contest facts in the case such as the amount of rent due or how the notice was served. Without a witness in court to answer these questions we must reset the case for an additional hearing at which time our client will have to appear and answer these questions.

Arizona allows all parties to appear remotely for the first hearing in an eviction action. In Pima County this often means appearing via Zoom. To appear in court via zoom you may call into the court with the information provided in your court paperwork or log into zoom on a computer, phone or tablet. Please make sure your background is not distracting, you are dressed appropriately for court, and keep yourself muted unless speaking. Note background noise is also a problem; please make sure you are somewhere quiet. Our office makes almost all initial appearances remotely and will not be in person unless we advise you otherwise. To communicate with us during court feel free to email us or use the Zoom chat feature (although be aware the tenant and other parties may see it so please do not provide any confidential information in the chat; you may let us know in the chat you have sent an email if necessary). Do not interrupt the judge unless you are notifying the court that the case is dismissed.

It depends. While five large dogs in a studio apartment would not be a reasonable accommodation for a tenant in need of emotional support animals, it may not be unreasonable on or in a larger property. If the dogs serve different functions, the need for multiple animals is a more reasonable accommodation request than for five animals that fill the same need.

In most cases yes. You may ask for supporting documentation, a letter from a health care provider outlining the need for the emotional support animal. You may confirm with the provider that he/she wrote the letter. You may not ask for specific medical information about the tenant; you may only confirm the need for the animal.

No. You may not charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an emotional support animal or service animal.

Did you send the tenant a notice of nonrenewal of the lease? Have you sent the tenant a notice of nonpayment of rent? We advise sending both of these notices. If the tenant offers rent and you do not want the tenant to remain, please do not accept rent beyond the time allotted pursuant to your termination notice. Once the time runs on any notice and the tenant has not corrected pursuant to the notice we can proceed with eviction.

You may accept prepaid rent. However, please note if the tenant vacates for an allowed cause prior to the termination of the lease, you may have to refund some of the prepaid rent. Additionally, ask the tenant to put in writing that he is choosing to prepay six months rent in advance and that it is not required by you to ensure we don’t run afoul of the security deposit maximum.

NO! You must follow proper eviction procedures before you may discontinue utilities.

Yes. You may sell a rental property at any time. You must disclose that the property is a rental property and the term of the lease to any potential buyer (who may or may have to abide by the lease, but the prior owner could be liable for damages if the new owner does not allow the lease to be completed), and we strongly discourage the use of lockboxes to show the property. The tenant is entitled to a 48 hour notice to enter before any showing and showings cannot be excessive.

In Arizona a judgment is generally good for 10 years. Prior to the ten year mark the judgment may be renewed if the creditor wishes to continue to attempt to collect the debt/judgment. If the judgment is not renewed, the judgment is no longer “collectible” after 10 years.

If a tenant or a guest of a tenant is arrested on the property, it is likely grounds for a notice of immediate termination due to criminal activity. The arrest itself is not criminal activity but they do tend to be related. If the tenant fails to vacate pursuant to the notice you may file to evict. You may not lock the tenant out of the unit; you must follow the eviction procedure.