If you are a residential landlord, you cannot take or keep a tenant’s belongings until the rental agreement has ended. If you wrongfully take a tenant’s personal belongings while the tenant is still renting from you, you may be liable for damages and your actions may relieve the tenant of liability for unpaid rent and other claims. After a rental agreement has ended, however, you have the right to dispose of a tenant’s abandoned personal belongings, but only after following v

In 2003, Mr. Busch successfully argued a case in the Oregon Court of Appeals that helped expand the way eviction notices could be served to tenants, setting new legal precedent. The case remains the law today. In that case, the tenants in an extended stay hotel were actively avoiding the landlord whenever the hotel's employees tried to serve them with an eviction notice. On the first occasion, the front office manager attempted to hand-deliver a notice to one of the tenants

Question How does the eviction process work when evicting an RV tenant? Is it different than evicting a manufactured home community...

With Oregon’s numerous bays and waterways, floating home marinas are a popular living choice for many people. By statute, floating homes are treated similarly to mobile homes with regard to landlord-tenant issues. A “floating home” is defined by statute as “a moored structure that is secured to a pier or pilings and is used primarily as a domicile and not as a boat.” Under Oregon case law, a boat can be considered a “floating home” if it is primarily used as a residence and n

Nearly every eviction begins with an eviction notice, which must be properly served on the tenant. Most notices give the tenant a certain amount of time to remedy a default (i.e., 10-day notice to pay past-due rent), followed by a tenancy termination deadline if the default isn't remedied. Other notices can't be remedied (i.e., a 24-hour notice for outrageous conduct) and simply inform the tenant that they must vacate by a certain time and date. After an eviction notice expir

Filing the Initial “FED” The term "FED" stands for Forcible Entry and Detainer. This is the legal term for an eviction lawsuit filed in...

Every landlord should have a good set of forms to use for issuing notices to tenants. The best place to get them is usually a landlord trade association. A few of the more prominent associations include the Manufactured Housing Communities of Oregon (MHCO), Multi-Family NW, and the Oregon Rental Housing Association. The legal publishing company of Stevens-Ness also provides a good selection of some basic landlord forms. However, a form is only as good as it is filled out. If

If a tenant leaves behind personal property, the landlord is required by statute to send an "abandonment notice." The abandonment notice...