Tenant committed fraud on the rental application

[Bishop1957]

I am in the process of evicting a tenant on a year lease in my home. The tenant has not paid rent 4 months while I'm going through this. It really bothers me because it is causing negative marks on my credit report.

The tenant clearly doesn't want to pay the rent and said so. Stated, they were not leaving , so do what you have to do.

While investigating I found out that everything on the credit application was a set up. They lied about everything. Had I had known I would not have rented to them. I ran a background check with this faulty service I will not use again and eveything came up okay. After this headache I used another and found out they lied and had 2 previous unlawful detainer suits.

I will be going to court over this matter in abour a week. Any suggestions? Also can I file criminal charges for fraud on the application?

I'm in california.

 

[Cvillecpm]

Hopefully you have an eviction service or knowledgable L-T attorney handling your eviction.

You need to be paying your bills - mortgage, insurance, etc even if you are NOT getting income from the property in order to save your credit.

That said, ask your attorney if you can file a Small Claims suit against tenants for rent BEYOND the amount asked for in the original UD/eviction. Normally, you would file for the current month and if they are delaying the writ of possession, they STILL owe you the money for the months they remain.

Frankly, this is a common story for landlords who take the short cut and don't screen rental prospects or use professional property managers with resources to deal with this type of issue.

Good Luck!