Tougher to do business in Florida?

Good day all,

Just put a park under contract in central florida. This would be my first deal. I was told to be carefull and think twice about buying a park in FL since the State is not landlord friendly. Apparently it is very hard, long and costly to evict tenants. Also that utility submetering has to be approved by tenants (obviously they won'T). Anyone with Florida experience who can share his/her experiences? i sure don't want to loose my shirt on a park that I cannot evict non paying tenants.

Thank you.... Deenvall

I too do business in Florida and would like to hear comments. Anybody out there with answers?

Deenvall & Jobolanger,

I have done some initial research. The link below is the state of Florida's statutes dealing with eviction. From what I have read the eviction process is not difficult. 3 day notice, followed by filing of eviction after which tenant has 5 days to respond. After this period a judgement & then writ of possesion. I can't say what the judges will be like though. Might be hard to get a judgement. I think much of this problem could be cured by keeping a very solid paper trail.

[www.flsenate.gov]

Perry Burget
perry@mhps.com
800-950-1364

Kentucky requires a 30 day notice before evicting, so it looks like Kentucky is harder than Florida.

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I recommend finding out if you are required to have an attorney do the eviction. If it is a small town where you cannot find an eviction attorney for a decent rate ($100 or less per eviction), it can get expensive to evict. Our park managers do all their own evictions in OK and IN but just found out in OH you need to use an attorney. There should probably be a section on your due diligence list for things to check when doing business in a new state - this would be one item.

Bret