Are you a property owner that needs to reclaim possession of your property from a tenant or other occupant? This article will help you understand what needs to be done under Oklahoma law to get possession of your property.
To evict any tenant in Oklahoma, the landlord must follow the required legal process. That would include:
- Properly terminating the tenancy or lease
- Giving proper notice of the eviction
- Filing the eviction with the District Court
In order to terminate a tenancy, you must first determine what type of tenancy or leasehold is inolved.
Was there ever a lease with the person currently in possession?
There is a person occupying your rental property. You would like to evict them. Before proceeding, we must first determine the status of their occupancy.
Did a lease ever exist between the Landlord and this person in possession of the property? That is the first question.
The lease could have been a verbal agreement or it could have a formal written lease. In either event, it could have been for a fixed term, or it could have been a tenancy-at-will, otherwise known as month-to-month tenancy.
In order to know how to proceed, we must first determine the type of tenancy involved.
Evicting a Tenant with an Expired Lease in Oklahoma
In Oklahoma, no notice is required to terminate a tenancy that already has an agreed upon “end date,” such as in a written lease. Therefore, when a written lease expires, there is no need to provide notice that the lease has expired. At that point, the tenants are expected to vacate or renew the lease.
In the event that the tenant continues to pay rent even after a lease has expired, the tenancy can convert to a month-to-month tenancy if the Landlord accepts the continued rental payments. In that case, a Landlord must now provide a 30-day notice in order to terminate the month-to-month lease that would now be in effect. After serving the 30-day notice of termination, the tenant’s right to possession would end on the expiration of the 30-day period.
To evict such a tenant, the landlord would serve a Notice to Quit on the property if the tenant continued possession after termination of the tenancy. The landlord would then file the Forcible Entry and Detainer lawsuit with the court to obtain a court order forcing the tenant off of the property.
Evicting a Person who never had a lease or a right to possess the property
In the event there is a person in possession of the property who never had a lease or a right to possession in the first place, you do not need to serve notice of termination of the tenancy.
No notice is required to terminate the tenancy, because no tenancy ever existed. In that case, the landlord may immediately file a Forcible Entry and Detainer lawsuit to obtain possession.
The landlord may also notify the occupant that they are in violation of the law and should vacate immediately. However, if the occupants do not vacate, then the Landlord must obtain a court order for possession. Afterwards, you would use that order to obtain a Writ of Assistance that asks the sheriff to forcibly eject the occupants from the property.
Hire an experienced Real Estate Lawyer to handle your evictions in Oklahoma
If you own or manage rental property and you would like assistance in evicting a tenant, contact our office for immediate help. We understand all of the complexities in Landlord Tenant law and will make sure that your eviction is handled properly. By doing everything correctly, you will get the tenant/occupants out faster, and get back to managing the property.