Generally, there are two types of evictions in Las Vegas: the summary eviction and the formal eviction. The summary eviction tends to be faster and costs less money. However, you don’t get to collect the funds at the time of eviction. The formal eviction is usually reserved for foreclosures, where the owners remain in the property, or commercial real estate and mobile homes. With those evictions, you are awarded a judgment at the time of eviction. Notices will be served and complaints will be filed. You’ll need to attend a hearing and work with the constable to retake possession of the home.

Eviction Process in Las Vegas: Notices

Primarily, you’ll start with the Five Day Notice to Pay or Quit. There’s also the Five Day Perform Lease Condition, which will be served if someone isn’t complying with their lease. Depending on your reasons for eviction, you might also serve a Three Day Notice to Quit Nuisance or a notice for squatters where there is no landlord/tenant relationship in place. You can also remove squatters for housebreaking, and you’ll need to talk to the police about that if necessary. The 30 Day No Cause Notice is when everything is going well, but the end of the lease is approaching and the owner wants to move back into the property.

Las Vegas Eviction Process: Time Periods

When you’re evicting a tenant, you cannot file a notice during a grace period. So if you have a five or 10 day grace period for rent payment, you’re delaying the time that you can start the eviction process. If rent is due on the first and you have a two day grace period, you can file on the next business or judicial day. So, if rent is due on the first, and the second and third are your grace days, you expect rent to be paid on the fourth. If it’s not, you can file your notice on the fifth. There may be holidays and weekends after you post that notice, so you’ll count up your days before the next step.

How to Evict a Tenant: Court Hearing

You can file your complaint in court when the five days pass and you still don’t have rent. Generally, it takes about a week to get a hearing scheduled. So, perhaps your hearing will be scheduled on or around the 19th of the month. If the tenant disputes the evictions, you’ll meet in court and the judge will go over your options. The judge has discretion and can tell the tenant when to get out of the property. It might be a few days or a week. The judge decides which date the constable will enforce the lockout. You will coordinate with the constable, get the locksmith there, and get possession back. So the timeframe is around the 24th or the 27th in an ideal situation. If you lost time because you were negotiating with the tenant and trying to bring the account current, that will add a little more time. This should be a four or five week process. This is with the Pay or Quit Notice. With a Nuisance Notice, you may have some extra time and it becomes a four to six week process. Remember that if you have elderly or disabled tenants, the judge can grant an additional 30 days.

This has been an overview of tenant eviction. If you have any questions about the eviction process or anything pertaining to Las Vegas property management, please contact us at Five Star Real Estate and Property Management.