How Can I Evict My Roommate?

Evicting a tenant is a fairly simple process. But what if you need to evict a roommate? What if there’s a family member who just won’t leave? How do you handle evicting someone who lives with you?

Get started Start an Eviction Notice Answer some questions. We’ll take care of the rest.

Avoid the Paperwork—Just Ask

The first step, of course, is simply asking. Since this is a roommate, friend, or family member, your chance of success with politeness is much better than a typical landlord-tenant relationship. Odds are you’ve done this already, but it’s an important first step and would end up saving you a lot of paperwork, time, and hassle.

Use an Eviction Notice

If asking doesn’t work, you actually must serve your unwanted roommate or family member with an Eviction Notice. In most states, the process for evicting someone who lives with you is quite similar to the process described in the first paragraph. Treating your roommate like a tenant increases your chances of success.

But here’s the good news: commonly, the person you’d like to move out will not have a lease. In most situations without a lease, the person living in the property is treated as if they had a month-to-month lease, meaning they’ll need only a month to vacate.

The Landlord/Tenant Eviction Process

For your reference (and since using an Eviction Notice will work similarly for you), here's how the Landlord/Tenant eviction process usually works:

The landlord serves an eviction notice, and if the tenant doesn’t remedy the problem, both the tenant and landlord end up in front of a judge. If that judge finds for the landlord, the tenant’s given a reasonable amount of time to vacate. Though laws vary state to state -- and sometimes, even within a state -- the process nearly always plays out as we just described.

The reasons to evict someone you live with are usually the same as reasons to evict a tenant, as how you navigate the eviction process in general. It starts with a dialogue and often progresses to an Eviction Notice.