3 Day notice to pay rent or vacate in Florida

Attorney Tom Olsen: Evicting tenants, it's a lengthy process, and it usually starts by doing the three-day notice to pay rent or vacate.

Attorney Caleb Maggio: That's right. If it's an eviction for nonpayment of rent, you have to do a notice before you can file.

Tom: You can assist people with that as well?

Caleb: Absolutely.

Tom: Caleb, that three-day notice to pay rent or vacate, once it's properly prepared and signed by the landlord, how is it delivered to the tenant?

Caleb: You have a process server deliver it, or you as the landlord can also go on and deliver it. You're free to essentially tape it to the front of the premises if you can't hand deliver it, and just sign an affidavit that says it was delivered on this date and time by what we call posting if you post it on the front door. That is sufficient enough to start the counter on that time frame for the notice.

Tom: It tells the tenant you're behind in rent, you've got three days in which to pay that rent in full, or I'm going to start an eviction process.

Caleb: That's right, Tom. Very importantly, it excludes weekends and legal holidays from that three days. You've got to be really careful with that. That's why you really need an attorney's assistance with this, because I've seen over and over again landlords who do this notice, file an eviction, and the eviction just gets dismissed because the three-day notice wasn't done properly.

Tom: I remember back in the day when I was doing three-day notices, you would actually say only before three days from now, and you would actually fill in the date, the deadline date. Then I quit filling in that deadline date because you can make mistakes for, again, but it doesn't count holidays. You don't have to put the deadline date in there, do you?

Caleb: It's not a legal requirement, Tom. It may be a good idea if you can calculate it with care, but--