Professional delinquent tenants

The subprime crisis of 2007-2008, subsequently aggravated as of 2019 by the COVID 19 pandemic, many families have seen their income reduced and, consequently, have serious economic difficulties even to meet the most basic payments, such as food purchases and the payment of the mortgage or rent, unfortunately some of them face the eviction for non-payment of rent, a separate case is that of professional delinquent tenants.

Proof of the first is the high number of families that have to resort to the Food Bank and of the second, the extraordinary measures that the Administrations have to take to prevent or avoid the avalanche of evictions due to non-payment, be it mortgage loan installments, be from rental income.

Unfortunately, apart from the families that have real economic problems, there is a group of scoundrels who, taking advantage of the misfortune of others, try to blend in with the mass of those affected by the crisis, in order to avoid paying rent.

The tactic of these individuals consists of subjecting the owner to the trick of the boiled frog: apparently they make an effort to pay but in fact what they do is delay payments or skip some monthly payment on time, so the owner does not realize that is being scammed and he confuses a delay that he considers punctual, with a clear desire not to pay the rent, until it is too late and the problem has become inevitably big.

These types of problematic tenants live by swindling small amounts from successive owners who lease them homes or business premises who, clearly, take advantage of crisis situations, whether they affect them or not, to evade their payment obligations. They always find an excuse not to do so, for example regarding the characteristics of the rented home or premises, and that they believe that this excuse justifies the non-payment of their due rent.

At first they appear to negotiate with the owner, for example the delay in paying rent, which contractually has to be paid before the 5th of each month, with excuses such as that their clients have not paid them or that the help of the Administration it does not arrive until the 10th, if the owner accepts his blackmail later the excuse is that the aid does not arrive until the 20th and so on until skipping a whole month of rent.

They vehemently argue that they have financial problems and they do not give a damn if they are causing financial problems to the person who has rented the house or the premises, as if all the rental contracts were signed by a large holder, that is, a bank or an investment fund. .

Unfortunately, the Administration of Justice seems designed to favor these delinquent tenants and when they finally accept an eviction lawsuit for processing, after months of waiting due to COVID or for other reasons, they set a trial date to attend the demand for non-payment of rent several months later, and even more months later the release date is set, and meanwhile the delinquent tenant continues to live quietly in the rented house and without paying any rent.

What does he have to do? landlord against a professional delinquent tenant?

We advise all those who have a home or premises for rent to take precautions against freeloading tenants and that at the first symptom of delay or haggling over the conditions of the rental contract, go to a lawyer specializing in evictions for non-payment of rent, because in the end They are going to have to take their tenant to court so that they return possession of the house, which, until now, belongs to the tenant.

Perhaps your tenants are good people, dutiful and honest, whom the landlord would like to help pay their rent in case of economic difficulties, but there are countless professional delinquent tenants who go from house to house and from place to place leaving large amounts pending payment from one to the next. We know the case of a tenant who, with what he has defrauded the owner of his home, has saved enough money to change the commercial premises of the business for one larger and in a more commercial area than the one he had. By the way, the owner of the old premises has also stopped paying rent, and surely the owner of the new premises will also stop paying sooner or later. If he has never had a similar problem, because all his tenants have been "good", he will be lost, since he will not know how to act in this situation.

Expert eviction attorney for professional delinquent tenants

Like everything in life, each teacher has his booklet.

The same thing happens in eviction processes and if you hire an eviction specialist lawyer you will have all the experience of years of practice and study at your disposal.

That is why it is important that, before hiring, you verify if the legal professional "controls" this type of process. It is immediately noticeable as soon as you speak for five minutes with an expert.

The tenant can stop the eviction through a procedure called enervation of eviction.

The enervation of the eviction is that once the lawsuit is filed, the tenant consigns in court the rents that he still owes and thus, the court will not execute the release of the home or premises.

For this, you must notify the delinquent tenant, by burofax, of the amounts that he owes you and for which you are going to file the eviction lawsuit for non-payment of rent and you have to wait 30 days to do so.

In any case, these professional delinquent tenants are unfazed by the burofax and wait to be sued. Once the demand is notified, they resort to free justice to put all kinds of obstacles to the procedure and thus extend the scam due to non-payment of rent or what is the same: enjoy free housing or commercial premises for a few more months.

Thus, thanks to the deadlines of the inefficient Administration of Justice, professional delinquent tenants are guaranteed their free stay for months, although the Urban Leasing Law only asks for the non-payment of one month's rent to evict your tenant, and although the landlord Immediately put the lawsuit in the hands of a lawyer specializing in evictions for non-payment of rent, the professional delinquent will enjoy months of free housing or commercial premises.

That is if the owner has acted diligently at the first sign of non-payment, but many property owners wait and wait, hoping that their tenant's excuses are true (next month I pay you, they have to pay me some arrears,... )

In fact, some "experts" in living "for the face" no longer even make excuses for their owners, they simply don't care, since they know how the process works and that the owner cannot kick them out without a court ruling.

And of course the owner can not even think about cutting off the electricity, water, gas or changing the locks, because professional delinquent tenants are going to go straight to court to file a complaint and the owner will end up being investigated in a criminal offense, and everything that has been lax on the part of the Administration of Justice in executing the eviction for non-payment of rent is going to become efficiency and diligence in the lawsuit against the owner for cutting off supplies to the professional delinquent tenant.

Theoretically, the tenant has a period of 10 days to answer once the lawsuit is admitted by the court, the lawyer of the administration of justice issues a decree where the date of trial and release already appear. However, we know of cases in which this period has been extended for months with excuses by the court related to COVID and others. Finally, the professional delinquent tenant opposes the lawsuit with a lawyer and solicitor (free justice, of course) as a means of obtaining new deadlines and extensions in the launch.

When the launch date finally arrives, the professional delinquent tenant still has the tale of tears: what if the children are small, what if the crisis... as if the owner of the home had no family or was not affected by the crisis! On other occasions, pure blackmail is used thanks to platforms for the defense of the rights (not the obligations) of the tenants.