Hello everyone and Welcome to another
episode of Selling Greenville your
favorite real estate podcast here in the
upstate of South Carolina I'm your host
as always Stan McCune I am as you know a
realtor here in Greenville and all of my
contact information is in the show notes
should you need to reach out to me for
any reason and as well just just a
reminder as always if you haven't given
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to let them know hey this is a
podcast worth listening to I'd
appreciate that today I'm going to be
talking about something that I have
never done before I actually had to go
to North Greenville Summary Court for
an eviction hearing and the reason why I
don't normally have to do this I have
rental properties and and we've had to
evict before but the reason why I
don't normally do this is because my
property manager actually usually fills
in for me and in this case she was
filling in for me but felt like I needed
to be a part of it in case I needed
to provide any supporting documentation
because we had a unique situation and so
I figured you all would be interested in
this for to to take a step back
I get this question from time to time
how is South Carolina and how is
Greenville from the standpoint of
evictions is it more tenant friendly is
it more landlord friendly and
generally speaking it is more of a
landlord friendly area there is a lot
more common sense down here that is
typically exercise when it comes to
evictions If a
landlord provides adequate data that
they have done their thing and that
they've gone about things the right way
usually they're just going to side
with the landlord they're not going to
just let the tenant just have an
you know hold a landlord hostage for no
good reason now we had some some quirks
during Co did hear some some
instances in which evictions were
were not able to be done due to the
rules that were set in place with the
eviction moratoriums and and all of that
but even so there were instances in
which that that was not the case as
well there were instances in which we
had evictions that were still
happening during covid that you know
where tenants did not have an excuse
based on covid and judges were were
still generally being favorable to that
generally speaking there there were
of course exceptions to that as well
what happened in the instance where I
had to attend court yesterday was a
particularly unique one so I purchased a
property
recently that was an extremely
unusual type of situation in itself
where I had someone contact me that was
like hey I just need to sell this
property off ASAP I'm willing to sell it
for pennies on the dollar I just I need
the money I need to move on I'm going
out of the area and this was a lady
that had just gotten this property from
her divorced husband it was part of
the of the divorce
settlement so so I look at the
property with her and you know we go
through it there's all sorts of just
garbage all all over the place in the
proper she she was not living in the
property nobody was living in the
property there was there was a dog in
the front yard interestingly chained to
the fence very friendly dog but the
the property was just full of garbage
all over the place and
so we start talking about okay what what
is the deal with all this stuff and she
tells me that well actually my my
ex-husband's
sister has all this stuff and she
actually is claiming to me that she had
a verbal lease in place with her
brother where B whereby she was
basically using this house as storage
she wasn't living there she she
apparently had a verbal lease in place
to use as storage well well we all know
that that's a bunch of Croc there
is no way she's paying her brother to
Leisa house to have a bunch of garbage
in I mean literally it was just a bunch
of
garbage nonetheless when you have
someone in South Carolina where we are a
verbal lease State you can have a verbal
lease it doesn't have to be written
someone claims that they have a lease
agreement if you go in that property and
start hauling their stuff out they can
take you to court well guess what I'm
not a big fan of being sued so I had to
go about this the right way I purchased
the property
and I went ahead and had my property
manager immediately give 30 days notice
once the 30 days notice was up we
started the eviction process well there
are some quirks with doing this when
you've got someone that is not living in
the property that you're trying to evict
them from like this is all screwed up
and it was challenging just to find a
constable that would even serve her
at her residence that she lives at
nonetheless we were able to do that and
that led to her then disputing the
eviction and asking for a hearing so
that's what we did we me and my property
manager we go to the North Greenville
Summary Court yesterday we get together
we are sitting there in the lobby
talking and in roles the lady and her
son in what looks to be like basically a
brand new BMW I mean it is it's not it's
not like a seven series or anything like
that but it's a nice car I mean it's
it's definitely you know a $40
$50,000 car it looked Immaculate nicer
than my car nicer than my property
manager's car I mean that was the nicest
car in the parking lot by far was this
lady's vehicle that she drove up in
so she and her and her son come
in and we you know enter the the
courtroom so the judge walks in young
guy I don't even know what his name is
kind of doesn't even really matter he
starts collecting information we make
our case give him some of the supporting
information including this the certified
mail where the original notice was sent
and then they make their case well
their case was again people that had
just driven up in a what looks to be
like a brand new
BMW they make the case that they a
can't pay rent they don't have enough
money to pay rent and they need the
contents that of that they have that are
in the building okay in this house they
need that stuff reminder it's all
garbage in there it's 100% garbage it's
been sitting in a house that is not air
conditioned or or heated so who knows I
mean it's probably got stuff growing in
it by this point it's it's a joke
it's a joke but they they claim that
they need that stuff but they also don't
have enough money to get a U-Haul in
order to haul the stuff away now they
will have money they their paycheck
comes in the first of the month so they
said that they will have the money the
first of the month so we were
actually in there for quite some time I
thought it was going to be pretty quick
but the the judge was really agonizing
over this he was really and and of
course the the lady and her son both
claimed to be disabled the lady came in
a wheelchair I I don't know you know
whether that's whether she was
pretending or not I'll assume that she
wasn't again it's hard to to trust
someone when when they have a really
nice vehicle and they're they're
claiming that they can't rent a U-Haul
which does not cost that much money to
rent a U-Haul locally nonetheless
the the judge really agonized over it
and it he made a decision that was very
surprising to me so he looked at the
certified mail where the notice was sent
and and again it was confusing whether
it should be sent to the house itself
whether it should be sent to the the
property where this woman lives
he identified that the ZIP code on there
was not correct now in Greenville we
have 29611 29609 and
29607 zip codes all converge kind of
near the same spot there's like one
little area in West Greenville where
where kind of all those zip codes kind
of converge to a certain extent
and my property manager had put 29611 on
it then apparently the post office had
changed it to
29607 but the legal address was
29609 so the judge said this is
actually not a valid 30 days notice but
he wanted to I think he he sat there and
he realized what these people were
saying I mean I I can't tell you how
many times he asked them now you haven't
paid rent in April you haven't paid rent
in May you haven't paid rent in June and
you haven't paid rent in July and you
can't afford it in August he he
literally asked them so why didn't you
save the money you would have been
paying for rent towards getting a U-Haul
all these months hwell that's a great
question maybe because they weren't
paying rent before that they just had
their stuff in there and there was never
a lease you know in agreement to begin
with there was never a lease in place to
begin with they were never making rent
payments she was she wasn't paying her
brother to have garbage in this house
that house was just sitting vacant it
was just you know there was nothing
going on with
it anyway he asked multiple times the
judge asked multiple times he he went
through it and and multiple different
way ways tried to ask them why they
couldn't
pay their rent and of
course they didn't have an answer they
didn't even they couldn't even say
how much the rent was that they were
paying before so it was all I think
he could tell he was standing there and
he could tell this was all basically a
joke but at the same time they were
asking for basically a couple of
weeks to get their stuff out he's
looking at it seeing that the address
was ever so slightly off and of course
they're claiming that they never saw the
mail you know it was not delivered to
them and you know they can make those
claims so he decided to basically in
in my opinion meet us in the middle
which at the end of the day I'm okay
with it's it's not my preferred solution
but I understand I I understand where
they're coming from and as long as they
get their stuff out and don't push us
further it's fine and even if they don't
were protected so so what he said was
basically the 30 days notice is n and
void because it was sent to the wrong
address which I thought that that was
kind of a kind of a cop out but whatever
the the ZIP code listen mail is
delivered with the wrong ZIP code all
the time as as long as there's not an
identical address somewhere else in
the same city with a different zip code
and there isn't you can look it up there
isn't nonetheless he said the 30 days
notice is Nan void but he's counting the
30 days starting with when we made the
eviction and not going to force us to
file a different eviction so basically
he's saying in
essence you can't evict tomorrow but I'm
going to let you evict after 30 days
after this eviction was filed which
was on July the 6 and so he's basically
giving them until August the
6 and if they're not out by August the 6
we they allowed us to actually pre
file the RIT of eviction in the event
that they are not out by the six we can
basically set out their stuff on the
first business day following and
they were fine with that I was not as
fine with that but it is what it is
we're we're able to work with it it's
just a couple of weeks basically from
from today and and and we'll work
with it but this is that that was a
very interesting decision I I didn't
know to expect that in case you're
wondering the courtroom in case you're
trying to picture what this is like it's
a massive courtroom but it was just five
of us me my property manager the lady
her son and the judge we all just there
the the the lady multiple times
interrupted the judge and he had to
correct her which I think was also
something that he wasn't super thrilled
about you know of of course you know
could tell that this was not a
situation where she knew how to compose
herself and that that type of
environment Sun was the same way
but the good news is that we are
seeing a light at the end of the tunnel
here we had to go about it the proper
way even if it was none of it was
true you know which I personally don't
think any of it was true I don't think
that they ever had a least agreement in
place I think that they that they did
receive notice as a matter of fact my
property manager had verbally told
them and and here's kind of the the
frustrating thing is you can have a
verbal lease but you can't have a verbal
termination to the lease the termination
has to be in writing and it has to be
received when you give them 30 days
notice you can't verbally tell them that
we had verbally told them that multiple
times but without them receiving the
mail they can claim well I didn't know I
didn't I didn't receive 30 days 30
days notice and so and and of course
technically they don't have to
receive it technically again if you if
you send it certified and they don't
accept it then my understanding is
that the courts are fine with with ex
with moving forward under the assumption
that they rejected that that they should
have received it that you made a good
faith effort to inform them and at that
point then the eviction is
valid but this is the situation where
we're at so I've actually been working
on this property since the beginning of
the year they the lady that was
selling it first contacted me at the
beginning of the year but we had a lot
of different things to go through
because she had the divorce element she
had a death in the family that caused
some some consternation whatnot then she
she got pregnant just all sorts of
things and so I've been working on
this since the beginning of the year I
just want this house so I can I can
flip it make it usable again it's an
eyesore on the street and oh and by
the way the dog I didn't even mention
the dog they just leave that dog out
there that dog you know I I could
probably have a case for that dog being
neglected and I'm considering you
know making that case but the dog is
neglected they have a a lock on the gate
so that you know we can even enter
the property it's
all very very frustrating and this is
this is the way it is though at the end
of the day when you are investing in
real estate there is a lot of quirks
there are a lot of quirks that you have
to deal with there is a lot of weird
little twists and turns that you run
into and this is one of them my first
time in an eviction Court type of
setting and it was interesting we
kept it cordial nobody you know
nobody said anything bad about anyone
else I think the judge would have
had issues with that if we had but they
didn't do that we of course didn't do
that we stuck to the facts we stuck to
the book we did everything the best we
could and here we are we're a couple
weeks away if they don't have their
stuff out then we are going to put it
out at the street and call a day and
that'll be it so I hope that that
gives you some insight Short episode
today but I hope that that gives you
some insight a look into my life a look
into the life of a real estate investor
some of the things that we have to do a
look into the life of a landlord people
give landlords a bad rap a lot of
times listen we have to deal with a a
lot of crap as well it's obviously
there are bad landlords out there but
there are a lot of bad tenants so
that's just something that we have to
deal with that's something we have to
live with it is what it is as I like
to say that's that's my New Jersey
coming out it is what it is you know it
is what it is but that's it for
today's episode if you have any thoughts
questions comments feedback house you
need to sell a house you need to buy all
those good things my contact information
is in the show notes as well as I
always say leave us a rating leave a
review to the show I'd appreciate that
as well until next time I hope you guys
stay safe stay cool stay out of the rain
enjoy the rest of the week
[Music]