A thorough tenant screening will help keep most delinquent tenants out, but there may be a time that, even if you are as careful as you can be, that someone will slip through and will need to be evicted. If this happens you will want to protect your property, make sure that you understand your local eviction process, and have a plan on how to recoup any lost rent if you choose to do so.

Wrongful Evictions – When it comes time to evict a tenant, you will want to make sure to follow your local laws and be careful not to deviate from the process. If you do not properly evict them, you may find that the judge denies your request and you are back to square one, which will cost you even more in lost rent.
Serving an Eviction Notice – Part of the eviction process will include serving an eviction notice. While you should always check with your local laws to make sure that they haven’t added anything to the general process, there are often a few acceptable ways to serve an eviction notice.
Protecting Your Investment Property – Depending on the reason for evicting your tenants and the relationship you have with them, the idea of leaving people in your rental property that know their days there are numbered can be worrisome. There are a few things you can do to try to protect that investment.
If a Tenant Moves Out – If a tenant knows that you have begun the eviction process they may move out to avoid confrontation. That does not automatically mean that the eviction is over.
Finding a Tenant That Skips Out – When a tenant leaves your rental without warning, they could leave you financially strained and you will want to find them in order to recover some of your losses.

• Using the Legal System – There are legal routes you can take to both track a tenant and to retrieve monies owed.
• Finding a New Address – If a tenant leaves owing money, they likely won’t leave a forwarding address. If you are attempting to reach them to recoup some of your costs you will need to find that new address.
• 3 Ways to Track a Tenant – There are multiple ways to find a tenant that skips out, but if the above ways don’t work, you may take a look at these.

Small Claims Court -Small claims court can be trying. There’s a lot of preparation needed for it, and even if you win you may have trouble collecting the monies owed.

• Things You Should Know – If you take the time and money to open up a small claims case against a tenant or former tenant, you will want to make sure you are prepared for what all that entails.
• Using it to Collect Overdue Rent – Winning a small claims judgement may feel like a relief, but once you’ve jumped that hurdle you’ll need to move onto the next one: collecting the monies awarded to you.

How to Warn Other Landlords – When you’ve been forced through the eviction process and finally have the tenant out of your rental home, you know there’s a good chance that they’ll be moving onto the next landlord that may or may not see it coming. If you want to warn other landlords, you’ll need to be very careful how you go about this.