No one wants to deal with evictions, but they are an unfortunate reality in the world of rentals and property management. The good news is that they are rare and tenants will usually work to make things right as opposed to having an eviction/judgment on their record.
The number one rule in dealing with an eviction is to follow the rules and procedures of your particular County and State. Failure to do this may open you the landlord or property manager up to having the eviction contested and seeing your case getting thrown out of court forcing you to start the process over again while losing valuable time.
In the state of Colorado where I work, there is a very clearly defined process for evictions. The trigger to start an eviction proceeding is a violation of the lease terms. The most common of which is non-payment of rent, but we do see other violations. Others include undocumented roommates, undisclosed pets, and HOA violations.
Once you have established a clear lease violation, the next step would be to post a 3-day notice. The 3-day notice serves as a warning and gives the tenant a right or an opportunity to cure the lease violation.
This is generally the time the tenant gets very motivated to talk to you. If you are the landlord or property manager and you want to keep this tenant, would be a good time to work things out. If the rent is late, you could set up terms for repayment. If the lease violation is something more along the lines of an undocumented roommate or pet, this is a great time to make things right whether running an application on the roommate or taking a pet deposit.
If on the other hand, the tenant doesn't respond to the 3-day notice, In the state of Colorado you would commence with filing a complaint for "Forcible Entry and Detainer". Once filed you would mail a copy of this complaint to the tenant within one day.
The hearing will be scheduled, and at this point, the eviction process is well underway. For a complete description of the Colorado, Eviction Process read this article, it goes into much more detail.
Evictions are always difficult but once you understand the process they do get easier over time.
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