Learning more about your rights as a Tenant

As a tenant, you need to also know about eviction law especially if it is your first time living alone in an apartment. This can help you in so many ways like when your landlord wants to kick you out for no reason at all. Because even if you are just a tenant, you also have your rights, too (though it may depend if you are a tenant at will which means you don’t have a lease, your landlord still needs to give you a week to 30 days’ notice in writing).

Just remember that it is illegal for your landlord to throw you out without any explanation. He needs to have a court order or a cause before he evicts you. This may vary from state to state or it may depend on your location but most countries have this. If ever your landlord does the following things like changing your locks in order for you to not enter the premises or shutting off your utilities, he is already breaking the law and you can be the one to file a lawsuit against him.

How will the landlord start on evicting you?

First, he/she has to give you a written notice for many reasons. One of the reason is you may have violated or breached your contract that you have agreed on before starting your lease. Some of the reasons may be because you didn’t pay your rent on time, have destroyed their properties or causing a disturbance to your neighbour (which is why you need to think about other people too). Before starting the lease, you will need to read and understand it for you to know where you stand.

 What happens if you don’t move out after receiving an eviction notice?

You landlord has all the right to bring you to court. Sorry, but at this point, it’s most probably your entire fault. The court will then decide if you will be evicted or not. If you are adamant that you did nothing wrong, the next big step is to seek legal advice because you might probably want to be heard in court.  You will be given a chance to explain why you should not be evicted from unsafe housing because your landlord refused to fix a certain issue which is why you refused to pay the rent.

If you don’t show up to for the hearing

Obviously, you will lose. The judge will most likely enter a default judgement against you and that is not good. Plus, your landlord can sue you for money that you owe him but that is for another court order.

Being knowledgeable about these kinds of things can most probably help you or your friend out in the future. Just make sure that you know the lease and all in order to avoid problems.