What Are Self Help Evictions
If you take the law into your own hands to evict your tenant, that is what self help eviction is. You must not do this. You must go through the courts to evict a tenant.
A self help eviction is any one of the following actions to remove a non-paying tenant from your home: changing the locks to prevent the tenant from entering your property, threatening the tenant, turning off vital utility services, and remove a tenant’s personal property.
Never threaten self help eviction in order to get the non-paying tenant out. You can not threaten a tenant with changing the locks or shutting off the phone. Almost every state has statutes that prohibit threats of self help eviction.
If you have to go to court because you engaged in a self help eviction or threatened a self help eviction, the judge does not care that the tenant was behind on his rent. If the tenant is in possession of the premises and you now what him out but he refuses to leave, you simply must go through the correct eviction process with the court.
Do not even think about engaging in a self help eviction. There have been many cases where a landlord removed a tenant’s personal property and put it on the sidewalk or even in the trash. A judge could easily award your non-paying tenant with a $20,000 damages award. Most judges will not require the tenant to produce receipts for his belongings because such proof of purchase could have been disposed of in the lock out.
Where you will really get slammed in court if you engage in acts of self help eviction is under the common law intentional torts of conversion statutes. This means you exercised control over an item in a manner inconsistent with the rights of its owner which deprived the owner of its value. Secondly, you could be hit with trespass which is the unlawful entry upon the property of another enjoying right to possession. These are claims for relief are intentional torts which means that if the court finds you are liable, they can award both nominal and punitive damages to the tenant.
In the case of WILLIAM SPANO v. HANNA ABDALLA South Carolina Superior Court (October 3, 2002) Hanna Abdulla engaged in self help eviction by changing the locks and removing William Spano’s personal property from the premise to the sidewalk. Hanna Abdulla claimed that she thought the tenant had abandoned the premises. The court was not persuaded by her claim and awarded Spano $1,800 for the 3 months of rent expense he incurred to live elsewhere. The court further awarded $1,200 in punitive damages and attorneys fees.
In Gordon v. Morris, 2001 Ohio App. (2-2-2001) the landlord changed the locks just before the end of the month after learning that the tenants had shut off the utilities and removed most of their belongings. The trial court awarded the tenants only $96.77 in actual damages (they had paid rent through the end of the month but were deprived of the use of the apartment, and this was the prorated amount). But the trial court further awarded $1,000.00 in punitive damages and $1,462.00 in attorneys fees.
Keep this in proper perspective. The court is not “siding” with the tenant. What the court is doing is preserving the peace by stopping disturbances and violence that accompanies struggles for the possession of land. Think about it. If it was legal to turn off a tenant’s power or throw their stuff out on the sidewalk, that same angry tenant could turn violent and shoot you. While it may seem like the courts are siding with the tenant, they are actually protecting you. Just follow the court approved procedure for tenant evictions. If you do not know what that is, then you need to hire a professional property management company.






































