New Law Makes it Easier to Evict Drug Using/Drug Dealing Tenants

Author: Joel W. Baar
Date: 07/10/2004

The Michigan Legislature recently enacted a new law that reduces the amount of notice landlords must give drug offenders before evicting them. Previously, landlords were required to give 7 days notice. Under the new law set to take effect September 1, 2004, a landlord need only provide 24 hours notice. Most importantly, all a landlord needs in order to commence the eviction process is a police report detailing accusations of use, possession or selling of drugs. A conviction is not required before seeking eviction.

Besides the shortened notice period to vacate a rental unit, a drug-related eviction process is cut from approximately 30 or more days to 15 days. As a result, the new law makes evicting an alleged drug user easier than evicting a tenant for nonpayment of rent.

Landlords can use this new law to streamline the eviction process and also to send a message to their tenants that they are seeking to improve the standard of living for law-abiding tenants. Further, landlords should consider including a provision in their leases stating that any illegal drug activity is a violation of the lease agreement, triggering the right to evict the tenant.