As a landlord with rental properties you will know the pain and frustration of having a tenant that simply does not pay his rent. There are so many self help rental collection plans and advice out there, but the only true solution is to place the tenant on terms, allow him the legal time period to rectify his breach, by paying the full arrear rental and only on his failure to do so, cancel the lease agreement. This cancellation of the lease agreement will mean that the tenant is no longer a legal tenant, but is now classified as an illegal occupant. No form of arbitrary eviction is allowed in South Africa. Any lockout, disconnection of utility supply, invasive “maintenance”, taking occupation with the illegal occupant or any other form of creative yet illegal arbitrary evictions is a form of spoliation. Spoliation is the interference or disturbance of possession, even if the possession is illegal possession, which is the case with an illegal occupant. The risk with this is the tenant would be allowed to go to Court and they will be successful with a spoliation order, meaning that you will be ordered by a Court to cease the interference with possession.
As much as these options seem like a logical and reasonable option, it is illegal and will only delay the process of obtaining an eviction order. AutoEvict allows you the freedom to follow the entire legal process, which will normally be done by an attorney, yourself. This step by step process of document generation and guided process to obtain an eviction order by yourself leaves you with a very affordable, legal and practical solution to obtain an eviction order. As a landlord your focus will be on rental collection with AutoEvict empowering you to act against a non paying tenant at a minimal cost. This will give you the legal means to increase the number of tenants paying on time. With our years of experience we understand that a non paying tenant that is acted upon swiftly but importantly legally, very often turns into a good paying tenant. However, should such a tenant not adhere to the letter of demand, or continuously pays his rent late, the only solution would be a quick and effective eviction. Many landlords delay commencement of a legal eviction due to a wide variety of reasons, including the high costs of an eviction, previous negative experiences with attorneys, or incorrect advice previously received.