If you rent an apartment and your tenants fail to comply with their contractual obligations, eviction can take a long time. Even if the tenant does not pay rent or utility bills. This is what happened to a couple renting an apartment in Vilnius - even if they do not pay, the tenant can still legally live in their apartment.
Justina and Gedas, who moved from Lithuania, rented out their apartment in Vilnius. The tenant, Marta, moved into the apartment. At that time, the apartment owners did not yet know that it would not be so simple.
"After signing the contract, she really wanted to move into that apartment quickly. She paid the deposit, paid the first month's rent according to the contract. She paid in installments and not all the payments herself," said Justina, the owner of the seized apartment.
The apartment owners signed a contract with the woman last November. When it came time to pay rent and utility bills, they didn't receive the money.
"I told her that I see that you won't pay, so move out and then we'll talk about how you'll cover that debt, but at least the apartment will be free. She kept saying that she would move out soon, but this has continued to this day," the owner of the seized apartment testified.
After sharing the story publicly, the apartment owners received messages from other people. It turns out that the woman also owes rent to others.
"Whenever I called her after that, she never picked up the phone, only replied to messages twice. Once she replied that she would call back, the next time she wrote that she would transfer 100 euros. Nothing ever happened," said the conversation with the apartment owner, whose apartment Marta had previously hijacked.
When they arrived at the apartment, the woman refused to talk and ran away from the cameras. She later threatened to call the police.
The man who was in the apartment told reporters that he had paid all the taxes to the apartment owners.
"Everything is paid, I can bring all the receipts, I can bring the contract, that the contract signed from November 7th is signed for a year and everything is paid," the man said.
However, they did not bring the aforementioned evidence. Although both times the apartments were rented to the woman after signing contracts, it turns out that eviction will not be easy. In this case, it went to court.
"The case is currently in court, it's just that the court is also taking a long time to decide the admission issue itself. Since April 9, the court has not decided the admission issue," Justina said.
"The court considers such cases for about six months, because the person who is being evicted must be given the opportunity to respond to the submitted document," explained attorney Andrius Lukašonokas.
The law states that you must notify the person living in your apartment of their eviction six months in advance.
"If the tenant does not agree to move out, the landlord has to go to court. The process takes about six months, and during that time, if the tenant is not honest, he can abuse legal loopholes and remain in the property even up to one year after the contract is terminated," said A. Lukašonokas.
Even if an insolvent tenant has moved out of the apartment, collecting the debt from them can be difficult, sometimes even impossible.
"A large number of amendments to the law have been adopted, which have facilitated the situation for debtors when collecting debts from them. My colleagues have calculated that debt collection could take up to 100 years," emphasized bailiff Jonas Petrikas.
According to the lawyer, apartment foreclosure situations could be avoided if lease agreements were drafted more carefully.
"Even with a written contract, unfortunately, both tenants and landlords often do not determine the conditions under which the contract could be terminated, and then the parties must follow the law, as I mentioned - the six-month period," the lawyer said.
According to lawyers, such disputes, when tenants do not want to move out, arise quite often.
Author: Domantė Slavinskaitė I LNK.LT
