Please find an excerpt of "How to Evict a Tenant" from the Buildium Blog.

With tenants and rental property, chances are you’ll have to evict a tenant sooner or later either because the tenant hasn’t paid his rent or because strange people keep visiting him at odd hours of the night. Whatever the reason, the tenant hasn’t lived up to the terms of the lease agreement and you want him out. The question is, how do you go about evicting him?

First and foremost, remember that the laws in your state may require different procedures than the general advice in this post, so get familiar with the rules in your area and get yourself a good lawyer – preferably one that specializes in landlord/tenant disputes.

With the legal disclaimer stuff out of the way, let’s look at some general eviction steps that apply in many states. As the real estate law section of FreeAdvice.com says: “The process of eviction is a very fast one compared to other kinds of legal actions. The trade off is that the landlord must do everything exactly right.”

Step 1: Give notice – The very first step is to give the tenant notice. This notice can take many forms.

a.     Nonpayment of rent – If the tenant has breached the lease provision that talks about paying rent on time, you’ll typically send a “pay rent or quit” notice that says you’ll begin the eviction process if the breach isn’t cured within a certain number of days... Visit the Buildium Blog for the rest of the post.