Ejectment and Eviction: Know the Difference

Trying to get someone out of your property? You may think you’re limited to an eviction. But evictions are strictly for tenants who have a landlord tenant relationship and, presumably, a lease (written or oral). But there are many situations where there is no lease, and where common sense tells us that the person in the property is not a tenant. What then?

Why is the Person In Your Property?

Imagine that you let someone live in property that you own, as a favor, or a gift, or perhaps, as part of a job or work or partnership arrangement.

Imagine that you allow a boy or girlfriend to move in with you, or perhaps, another family member.

Imagine that you don’t allow someone to live in your property, but they somehow are there—perhaps a squatter, or someone who has refused to leave after a foreclosure, or someone who believes that he or she has some rightful claim on ownership of the property.

Ejectment Actions

Scenarios like these, have no lease, and so there is no eviction available. But there is ejectment.

Ejectment is simply an action to remove someone from your property who is or was legally there, but whose right to remain has been taken away, or else, the right to possess the property, actual or claimed, doesn’t exist. It is just “kicking out” someone who is on your property who is not a rightful tenant.

To see who wins an ejectment action the court will look to each party’s right to the property, to see who has the superior right. Sometimes that’s easy, such as when one person is legally on title to the property and the other isn’t, or when someone is squatting or trespassing.

Other times it’s not so easy. And, many people who are sued for ejectment, will often claim as a defense that they are actually a tenant, so as to get the benefits of Florida’s landlord tenant laws which aren’t available in an ejectment action.

During the foreclosure crisis many homeowners remained in their home after their foreclosure, believing they maintained ownership of the property. When new owners purchased the property, they would have to file ejectment actions to get the previous owners out of the property.

Others will say that living on the property is a condition of a pre-existing contract, such as an oral agreement for someone to live at the property in return for work or favors. This essentially turns ejectment into a breach of contract case.

Extended Litigation

One negative or problem with ejectment is that there is no summary procedure, the way that there is with a landlord tenant eviction. Summary procedure is a procedure that in some cases allows a tenant to be evicted very quickly, and without extended litigation. Whereas ejectment actions, when contested, can turn into extended litigation.

Dispute over ownership of property? Let us help. Call our Fort Lauderdale business lawyers at Sweeney Law P.A. at 954-440-3993 today.

Sources:

clsmf.org/ejectments/

oncoreweb.srccol.com/srccol/onlineforms/CountyCivil/Ejectment%20Packet.pdf