Said It Here

When should I hire a process server for an unresponsive tenant?

Property managers waste weekends driving out repeatedly to track down tenants who ghost calls and avoid eviction notices. Continuing to attempt service personally delays the legal process and takes a heavy toll on mental health, making it necessary to hand the job over to a professional process server.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    trying the address a few times at different hours
  2. 2
    asking neighbors if they still see the tenant around
  3. 3
    letting an attorney handle the legal side
  4. 4
    Hiring different process servers
  5. 5
    Filing a police case or involving the sheriff for trespassing/unauthorized stay
  6. 6
    Hiring a lawyer
  7. 7
    Serving a 3-day notice and filing with the court for eviction
  8. 8
    Selling the property at a massive price reduction to a buyer willing to inherit a squatter

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

“tenant owes over $7,800 in back rent since november, ghosted my calls, and somehow keeps avoiding process servers for the eviction notice.”source ↗

“lease formally ended march 31st but they literally refuse to pack up or hand over keys.”source ↗

“driving down every weekend to deal with this nightmare is killing my mental health.”source ↗

CurrencyPopular8550 · r/PropertyManagement · 46 upvotes

“got one tenant situation right now that’s turning into way more running around than it should be. we’ve tried the address a few times at different hours, no answer.”source ↗

“would you keep trying a few more times or at that point just let a process server take over?”source ↗

Karate_Andii · r/PropertyManagement · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

r/PropertyManagementproperty managementreal estatetenant issues

People with this problem also raised