Just A Landlord

The following is a basic outline of the steps required for an eviction. These instructions and forms are optimized for Milwaukee County, however most are valid statewide.

Collections & Evictions Overview

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Disruptive tenants only get worse the longer they are allowed to act poorly without intervention. A tenant who is falling further behind in their rent is less likely to be able to pay off their balance as time goes on. Owners who succeed address the problems quickly.  Either the tenant resolves it, moves or the owner evicts.

The problem for a lot of owners is they are intimidated by or unsure of the process.  Here is an overview / outline

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Wisconsin CCAP (The WI Circuit Court Automation Program), which is under attack by some legislators,  provides free access to WI evictions, criminal and civil court cases.  This is invaluable in checking out prospective tenants, thereby avoiding nonpaying and disruptive tenants.

What resources are available for similar screening searches outside of WI?  I have attached the list of the ones we have identified.  Our list currently has resources for about half the states, but not all counties in all of those states. Some are free as is WI, others we have found so far are fee based.

So let’s  ”crowdsource” a more complete list.  The results will be shared here for all of us to use when screening out of state tenants.  If you have found other or better resources please post them to the comments on this page.  I will update this list and repost it as additional resources are identified.

Continue reading to see the list we already have assembled .  Clicking on a state’s name will take you to that point on the list.

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A reader responds to the previous post:

Can I evict for non-payment if I received a city order on the property or is this considered a retaliatory eviction?  The tenant is a month and a half behind in rent payments.

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A lot has changed in Milwaukee County eviction court over the past nine months. Recently a property owner we do work for faxed in a five-day notice she filled out herself, requesting we give it to the attorney and proceed with an eviction.

Our staff immediately noticed two problems with the notice that would cause the eviction to fail:

1. The owner listed late fees on the notice
2. She had used an older “fill in the date” 5-day notice. The date she entered was five days after the day she mailed it certified.

I had to call the owner and tell her she needed to start over with a new five day. She was upset and said this was the last financial straw – she is ready to walk away from the properties.

While hopefully she rethought this, it reminded me of the need to post these changes again so the rest of us do not make the same mistakes.  So what are these are  changes … (more…)

I was listening to NPR while clearing some paperwork off my desk.  They had a half  hour segment “How We Survive: Renters, Rights, and Resistance”

Under the guise of protecting tenants from foreclosure related evictions the speakers were  promoting just cause eviction laws – starting with CA but their goal is nationwide.  Let’s face it in most foreclosures the tenants live rent free for months.

More alarming was the second half the program where they discussed tactics used to avoid eviction for non-payment. (more…)