Upholding the Previous Owner's Lease

[dingo13]

I recently purchased a duplex. I reside on one side and there is a tenant in the other. At the time of purchasing, it was written in the sales agreement that the seller would be responsible for the tenant until the end of the lease. The lease is expiring next week and the tenant is refusing to leave. What legal rights do we have? Can he be removed from the premises, or do we have to start eviction. We own the property, but the lease is with the seller. He was told months ago that under the new ownership, his lease would not be renewed.

[ohiolandlord]

Given the limited facts that you have given me about your situation, I can respond as follows: In Ohio you must give 30 days written notice to the tenant that he must vacate the premises as you do not intend to renew his tenancy either on an annual or month to month basis. You need to do this prior to the next rental period. So if he pays rent on the first of the month, you must give the notice before the first. Then the notice would be expire at the end of March and he would need to be out prior to April 1. If he's still not out on April 1, you need to serve an eviction notice and then proceed with an eviction. However, if he fails to pay rent for March you could proceed with an eviction after his last day to pay rent has expired and after you post a three day notice. If you are unfamiliar with the eviction process, you may want to consider further information at the following link:

http://www.ohiolandlordtenant.com/evictkit.html

or consider our 11 part audio series containing almost 2 hours of information on the eviction process at

http://www.ohiolandlordtenant.com/eviction_audio.html