What is the name of your state? South Carolina
Hello - I am a new landlord of a townhome and have had problems with my first renter that I'm not sure how to handle. Any advice is appreciated.
My renter began to pay his rent in partial payments and then not at all. I sent him two notices to pay or eviction will follow. The first notice, he paid partial and promised to catch things up. The second notice he did not do anything. I filed for eviction with the Magistrates court. Shortly after and before a court date was set the renter notified me and said he was leaving and I could have the place. This was by email and he would not meet me or answer any question on payment of past rent or forwarding address. I went ahead and took possesion of the townhome, changed the locks, and cancelled the eviction filing with the court. I inspected the property and the tenant has stained and burned the carpet and burned one bath sink with cigaretts.
I am sending the renter a Security Deposit Itemization Form to the townhouse address and email to show why his security deposit will not be returned and list damages and rent that I would like paid. My question is how can I try and collect this money from the renter? What I understand is that I should file a claim in small claims court. My problem is I don't have a current address or address for the renters job which I have been told I need to file the claim. I do have his social security number, an email address, a cell phone number, and a family members contact info. Can I just give this to a collections agency and skip court? Should I just give up and move on?
Thanks for any advice.

Hire a professional property manager - the $$$ you think you have saved by doing it yourself is NOTHING compared to the cost to repair the damage and collect the unpaid rent.
Hire a pro manager and move on.

Part of your problem may be in the way you select tenants. Did you have him fill out an application? Did you pull a credit report? Did you run a criminal history check? Did you check for eviction filings? Did you verify income and employment? Did you check and see if the previous landlord information was correct?

Let us know how you screened this tenant and perhaps someone here can tell you what went wrong.

I thank everyone for the comments but they don't really answer my questions. What, if any, are my options on collecting from someone who has not given me a forwarding address? I have a number of other personal info items. You would think there is something I could do.

What can a professional property manager do for me in this situation. Are they going to pay the unpayed rent? Are they going to pay for the damages? I seriously doubt that. I do understand that they can work on the collections part of things but I can't believe they would put that much effort in. There is nothing in it for them other than loosing me as a customer. I'm not stupid. I've done a lot of research on property management. I just think I got into a unique situation. aabbcc - I did all the checks on the guy. He checked out perfect. I think he changed jobs and got into some problems and it went down hill from there.

Thanks again. Not looking for answers on what I could have done. Just looking for any advice on what to do next. I have a feeling moving on will be the answer.

A property manager would not have let it get this far. They would have given 3 day notice and NOT accepted partial payments. Proceeded with eviction and gotten you a judgement.

At this point moving on will probably bring you out ahead.

In retrospect you should have went ahead with the eviction and gotten a judgement at that time against the tenant. This way with all the info you have you could try to find bank accounts to attach or a work place to garnish wages.

Do a google on Tenant+collections. and select an agency of your choice. You will not see the money anytime soon but someday out of thin air a check may come. Don't forget to file in court and get a judgment. This will alert future LL's and give this guy a hard time when trying to get an apartment. It will also facilitate you being able to collect for many years to come. Best to move on and be careful about who you rent to. File as soon as possible in the future and once started might as well continue.

I agree, a property management company would have let the rent problems go so long. That is my mistake for trying to be too nice. That will not happen again.

I think I got bad information from the court. When the tenant released the place to me, I called the courts that I had filed the eviction with and said he was gone. They said that the case needed to be closed, which they did. I asked if it should continue to be open to reclaim past rent. They said no, file in small claims court.

Am I understanding correctly, I should have continued with the eviction in court even though the tenant moved out and release the property to me?

Alaska landlord - How can I file in court when they are requiring an address that I don't have? That is the question I wish someone would answer.

Thanks.

This is wonderful. What is his FICO score? If his credit is so good, you should have no trouble collecting. People with good credit want to keep it that way.

You may need to either hire someone to track this guy down, or find out if it's possible to do service by publication.