How long does it take to evict a tenant?

Attorney Tom Olsen: -typical issue for you that you're handling for landlords?

Attorney Caleb Maggio: A big one, Tom, is people who aren't paying their rent. Landlords a lot of times don't know what to do if they can get them out, if they have to just let them stay there. The big answer to that is if you have a tenant who is not paying rent, and they haven't given you any sort of statutory notice in writing to tell you a good reason why they're not, you can absolutely get rid of them. The first thing to do is give them a three-day notice for nonpayment of rent that basically says, "You're not paying rent. You have three days to pay or get out, or I can start this eviction process on you."

Tom: You've got a pulse on the economy out there as far as how many landlords are filing evictions these days. Any thoughts about that?

Caleb: There are a lot of evictions right now, Tom, and in fact, I'm seeing some judges actually really stay true to the summary procedure of these actions and get through them in a matter of a few weeks on some of these cases, specifically for residential properties, because what's going on is a lot of these landlords have mortgages on these property, and they rely on the tenant to pay the rent so they can pay the mortgage. When that doesn't happen, it starts to get real dicey for the landlord.

Tom: Caleb, what we're saying is that in law, especially when you're talking about any kind of lawsuit where you're in court, and judges are involved, most lawsuits take months and months and months and months and even years. Here in the state of Florida, our landlord-tenant eviction process, assuming nothing out of the ordinary is concerned, really can be resolved in a matter of weeks.

Caleb: Absolutely, Tom. It's called summary procedure, and it's specifically for those matters of eviction or unlawful detainer. Basically what that means is that the judge is required to expedite your case to essentially protect landlords when they have these tenants who are squatting in the property and not paying. Depending on the complexity of the eviction, you can get them out typically between three weeks and three months.

Tom: Compared to most things in the law, that's amazingly fast, I would say.

Caleb: Yes. Any other type of civil litigation, you're looking at 12 to 18 months before you actually get in that courtroom.

Tom: When you do an eviction, step number one is to have a copy of the complaint served on the tenant or tenants. You have a private process server or the sheriff do that for you. That counts down the number of days in which the tenant must file an answer, a defense to your eviction action, as I recall, right?

Caleb: That's right, Tom. This is another situation where a summary procedure comes into play. For a normal lawsuit, once you serve the complaint on a defendant, they have 20 days to basically file their response with the court. For an eviction, they've cut that time down to only five days.

Now, this does exclude weekends and holidays, but if you serve the complaint on a Monday, that tenant's going to need to serve their answer the following Monday. If they don't do that, then you get an automatic default judgment from the court. I say automatic. You still have to file a piece of paper to get the judge to do it, but the judge will do it at that point. You get out of that case really fast. It's another safe harbor for landlords.

Tom: Most tenants, I would say, from my past experience, they do not file an answer to the tenant eviction action because, hey, what can they say? They know they didn't pay the rent. If the time is up on Monday, and let's say on Monday, these days, you do it electronically, you file an order of eviction. How soon is the judge going to get to that? Is the judge going to pay special attention to that? Because I know the judge has got 50 files he's working on at any one point in time.

Caleb: It really depends on the judge, Tom. Typically, I get those orders signed within the week, and then you're waiting on the sheriff to come out. That could take a little extra time. Going back to the tenants not answering, you do have a lot of those. These days, you actually have a lot of tenants who have learned the game, if that's what you want to call it. They file these motions to determine rent. That's basically a motion that says they disagree with the amount of rent that's being set in the complaint.

Tom: Oh, boy.

Caleb: Even if the amount is correct, the tenant knows that it entitles them to a hearing in front of a judge. That extends the process a few weeks.

Tom: That is one tricky maneuver, Caleb. Now, everybody knows about it.

Caleb: [chuckles] Unfortunately.

Tom: All right.

[00:04:39] [END OF AUDIO]