Do you need to evict a tenant from your property in Oklahoma City?
Do you own property in Oklahoma County, but your tenant refuses to pay rent? Do you have a tenant that owes back rent? Do you need to reclaim possession of your property and get the tenant out of the house? We can help.
If your tenant is costing your money because they have over stayed their lease, we can help. If you have a month-to-month tenant that needs to go, we can help.
What does an eviction do?
An eviction is a legal process that allows you to oust a tenant from your property, and reclaim legal possession, so that you can re-lease the property again.
Without an eviction, you cannot enter the property, because possession has previously been transferred to the tenant at the start of the tenancy (or lease term).
Once possession of the property has been legally transferred to the tenant, the landlord no longer has a right to enter the property. Legal possession must be transferred back to the landlord. And if the tenant refuses to transfer possession back to the landlord, then the landlord must go to the courts in order to legally get back into the property.
What is the process for getting an eviction?
There are several steps you must take to legally evict a tenant and reclaim possession of your property.
The Five-Day Notice To Quit
First, you must give a five-day notice to the tenant if they have failed to pay their rent on time. This notice must be personally served on them (by process server or Sheriff) or it must be posted on their door and also sent by certified mail.
If your tenant has been renting from you on a month to month basis, you must give the tenant thirty days notice that you intend to end the month-to-month tenancy. However, if the tenant is late paying their rent for that month, then you need to give a five-day notice to vacate.
The Petition for Forcible Entry and Detainer
After the five days of notice have passed, you can file a lawsuit for Forcible Entry and Detainer. This is the legal action that you must take to get legal possession of the property, as well as any judgment for unpaid rent or other damages.
After you file the Petition for Forcible Entry and Detainer, you will get a hearing date set about a week later. At that hearing, you will show up and explain to the judge the terms of the lease, rental payment, testify that the tenant has not paid rent in full, and ask for the tenant to be evicted. You may also ask for a money judgment as well as for the court to order the tenant to pay your attorney fees and court costs.
If the judge rules in your favor, you will get a judgment for possession. The court may also award you damages and attorney fees.
However, at this point, you still need to get the tenant physically out of your property. Because all you have is a judgment, a piece of paper with words, and you do not know if the tenant will obey these commands.
Executing a Writ of Assistance with the Sheriff
This is where you ask the Sheriff to intervene. Once you have obtained a judgement — a court order — you now have legal authority to reclaim the property. But you may need help executing it. Therefore, you can ask the court for the assistance of the sheriff in executing the judgment.
Now, you must take your order and file it with the court clerk. After wards, you must ask the court to sign a new legal document — a Writ of Assistance or a Writ of Execution. This document tells the Sheriff to assist you in reclaiming the property.
After the judge signs the Writ, you will take it to the Sheriff’s office. You will then pay the sheriff a fee and ask them to physically enter the property, allow you to change the locks, and assist you in removing the people and things inside your rental property. The Sheriff will arrest the individuals if they refuse to comply, since they would now be trespassing on your property.
How long does an eviction take?
Many landlords want to know how long it takes to evict a tenant. And the answer is not the same for everyone. That is because when evictions are done incorrectly, they take a long time. But when done correctly by our office, they can be completed within a 7 to 10 days.
If the process is not executed timely or efficiently, it can take over a month to get a tenant out of the property. However, the errors and issues that can drag out an eviction can be prevented by simply delegating the entire task to an Eviction Lawyer.
An experienced eviction lawyer can help expedite the process by sticking to the time lines and getting everything done as soon as it is legally possible. Often, what slows down an eviction case is improper service of the 5-day notice, or improper service of the FED lawsuit. By being extremely diligent on these two tasks, an eviction lawyer can make sure the process stays on schedule.
Can I hire an Eviction Lawyer to do all of this for me?
Yes, our office can handle everything for you. In fact, we advise that you call us as soon as possible and let us handle everything from the beginning, including the posting of the 5-day notice on the door.
After you retain our office, we will handle everything from start to finish. We will notify you of the court date, we will explain whether you or another witness will have to attend or not, and we will do everything that needs to be done to succeed in that process.
We will handle the filing of the Writ and getting the Sheriff to scheduled to assist you in entering your property again.
Hire the Oklahoma County Landlord Lawyer for your Eviction Cases
If you are interested in having us handle your eviction process, please complete this form and we will contact you about getting started. You can also call or text 405-701-6016 to get started.
We accept cash, check, ACH transfer, and debit and credit card payments. You may meet at our office or schedule a phone or video conference. All of the correspondence may be done via email, but you may also bring physical copies of the lease and other documents to our office if you prefer.
We are able to accommodate all types of landlords, whether technologically advanced and remote or whether operating in a more traditional real estate office that uses fax machines and U.S. mail.
Types of Evictions that our office handles in Oklahoma County
We represent landlords that are involved in all types of rental properties, from single-family real estate to multi-family apartment complexes, from commercial shopping centers to industrial warehouses, the cannabis industry, and all other forms of real estate in Oklahoma County.
We handle eviction lawsuits on behalf of Landlords, Property Managers, and Investors in all of the following circumstances:
- Residential property Evictions
- Commercial property Evictions
- Evictions involving Month-to-Month leases
- Evictions with No Lease or Expired Lease
- Evictions for Out-of-State Investors
- Evictions for Lease Violations
If you would like information about evicting a person or entity from your rental property, contact our office. We can schedule an in-person consultation or a phone or video conference.