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He isn't paying and he won't leave. It feels like one emergency because it is happening to you as one. Legally it is two problems, they have an order, and taking them in the wrong order is what costs landlords years. This page is the whole sequence, including the parts nobody tells you and the parts that are uncomfortable to read.
Written for landlords anywhere in India, with the Tamil Nadu specifics marked. Nothing here is behind a signup or a payment.
Almost every landlord in this situation wants to start with getting him out. It is the more emotionally urgent half. It is also the slower, more expensive, more contested half — and the one that goes better when there is already a paper trail behind it.
Demanding the arrears formally, in writing, with a deadline, does three things at once: it is the action most likely to actually end the standoff without anything further; it fixes the amount and the default on a dated record while the evidence is fresh; and it is the step almost every route after it assumes you already took. Going straight at possession while the rent has never been formally demanded gives you the harder case and nothing on paper to support it.
The order that works: gather the record → demand the arrears in writing with a deadline → then, only if that deadline passes, move on possession. Each step makes the next one cheaper.
Two hours of admin here decides how strong everything after it is. Do all six, even the ones that feel obvious.
Write the rent ledger — month by month
One line per month: what was due, what was actually paid, what date it landed, what is still short. Not "about six months". A notice that says ₹1,42,000 for April to September lands differently from one that says "several months of rent", and this ledger is what the whole demand is built on.
Pull the bank and UPI statements
Download the statements covering the whole tenancy and highlight every rent credit. The gaps are your case. Payment history proves the rent amount and the arrangement even when nothing was ever signed.
Save the messages where he admits it
The WhatsApp "sorry sir, next week", the SMS promising to vacate by a date that has passed, the call you followed up in writing. An admission of the amount owed, or of a date he agreed to leave, is the single most useful thing you can hold.
Find the agreement — or accept there isn't one
Registered, unregistered, or a photo of a signed page: find whatever exists. If nothing was signed, do not stop here. It changes your options; it does not end them. See the section below.
Note the property and the people, exactly
Full name and current address of every tenant, the door number and address of the property as it appears on documents, when the tenancy began, the agreed rent and deposit. A notice sent to a wrong or incomplete address is the most common way this fails before it starts.
Photograph the property if you can access it lawfully
Only where you are lawfully entitled to be there — common areas, exterior, or an inspection he agrees to. Condition evidence matters later when the deposit is being adjusted against damage.
If you never issued rent receipts, start now, even mid-dispute — a dated receipt for every payment from here on is more evidence, and it costs you nothing. Our free rent receipt generator produces them in a few seconds.
Read this section even if you read nothing else. Every item here is something ordinary, decent landlords do in month four out of sheer frustration — and each one turns a claim you are likely to win into a complaint you have to answer.
Do not cut the water or the power
It feels like the fastest lever you have. It is the fastest way to turn a case you would win into one you are defending — utilities are treated as essential supply to an occupant, and doing this hands him a complaint against you and the sympathy of every forum you later stand in front of.
Do not change the locks or take back possession yourself
Even where he is clearly in default and the term has clearly ended, recovering possession is done through a legal route, not by taking the keys back. Self-help possession exposes you to criminal complaints and can put him back in the property with your own conduct on the record.
Do not remove or hold his belongings
Locking his goods in, moving them out, or holding them against the arrears is not a lien on rent. It converts your money claim into an allegation against you.
Do not send anyone to "talk to him"
Sending relatives, a broker with muscle, or anyone whose job is pressure. One threatening visit produces a police complaint that outlives the arrears, and it will follow the dispute everywhere it goes afterwards.
Do not accept part-payment silently
Take the money — but confirm in writing what it was applied to and what remains due. A quiet part-payment lets him argue later that the amount was settled or that you accepted a new arrangement.
Do not let it run another six months
This is the expensive one, and it is the one everybody chooses. A suit for arrears generally has to be brought within three years of each month's rent falling due — meaning the oldest months are the ones you lose first, quietly, while you wait for him to come around. Waiting is not neutral.
This is the sequence a formal rent demand sets running, in order. It is the same plan we build for people who buy the notice — the difference is that theirs is dated.
The day you send it — Serve the notice and keep the proof
Send it by Registered Post A.D. (or Speed Post) AND by one instant channel — email or WhatsApp. Photograph the receipt the day you post it. The serve kit inside your document lists every proof to keep.
Suit for arrears of rent must generally be filed within 3 years of each instalment falling due
36 calendar month(s) from the earliest month of arrears. Add that date to your document and we will work this out for you.
Limitation Act, 1963 — Schedule, Article 52 (arrears of rent)
Why there are no dates above. They fill in the moment you tell us the months of arrears — that is what sets every other date. We would rather leave them blank than print a day that is not yours, because the only thing worse than not knowing your deadline is believing a wrong one.
If they do what the notice asks
Record the payment against the months it clears, and give a receipt. An unallocated payment is the most common reason an arrears claim gets messy later.
Residential Rental Agreement (Leave & License) →If they reply, or offer to settle
A tenant who offers to clear arrears in instalments is usually the cheapest outcome available to you. Write the schedule down — what is paid, by when, and what happens if an instalment is missed.
Tenant-Landlord Settlement Agreement →If they ignore you
Continued default after a served notice is the evidence an eviction claim is built on. The next step is an eviction notice — the arrears notice you have just sent is the document it stands on.
Legal Notice for Eviction (Tenant) →They are broadly right, and this is the moment most landlords give up. Unpaid rent and a refusal to vacate are civil disputes, so the police will usually decline to act on them — that is not indifference, it is the limit of what a police station is for. It changes the moment there is a threat, an assault, or a criminal act; those are police matters and should be reported as such.
What "civil matter" actually means in practice: the remedy is a written demand with a deadline, and then a civil forum if that is ignored. The free option has run out, and the next step is not a court case — it is a letter.
A legal notice is a formal, dated letter sent in your own name that states the facts, states the exact amount owed, and gives a deadline to pay or to act. That is all it is. It is not a court order, it carries no automatic penalty, and nobody — us, or an advocate charging thirty times more — can guarantee what he does when he receives it.
Here is the honest picture of what it does. For many tenants, the arrival of a formal demand is the point at which ignoring you stops being free — the dispute moves from an argument to a record, and a lot of standoffs end there. For a determined tenant, it will not be enough on its own. What it does in both cases is give you the one thing you cannot manufacture later: proof that you demanded the exact sum, on a date, and gave him a chance to pay before you escalated. Nearly every route after this expects that demand to exist.
Be suspicious of anyone who promises results. A notice is the cheapest correct first step and a necessary record. It is not a guarantee of payment, and any service telling you otherwise is selling you something we won't.
This is the belief that stops more landlords than any other, and it needs two separate answers, because they point in different directions.
For the money: yes, you still have a claim.
Rent owed to you does not stop being owed because nothing was signed. Bank transfers, UPI history, receipts and messages where he acknowledges the amount can establish both the arrangement and the arrears. A demand can be made on that evidence. If you have been receiving rent into an account for two years, you are not starting from nothing.
For getting the property back in Tamil Nadu: be careful — this part is uncomfortable.
Without a registered tenancy agreement, the Rent Court fast route is generally not available to you, and possession has to be pursued through the slower ordinary civil route. The Madras High Court has said so more than once. If the tenancy is still running, putting a registered agreement in place now is what buys you the fast route the next time this happens.
The rulings, in plain English: No written agreement, no fast eviction · A 40-year oral tenancy in Chennai · The six eviction grounds under the TN Rent Act
Including the route most people pick by default, which is the first row.
| Route | Cost | Time | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep calling and waiting | ₹0 | Indefinite | Nothing on paper. Arrears keep ageing, and the oldest months start dropping out of reach. |
| Police complaint | ₹0 | A day, usually | Almost always "this is a civil matter, sort it out yourselves" — because that is broadly correct. Worth doing only if there has been a threat or a criminal act. |
| Formal notice, sent in your own name | ₹299 to draft it yourself · ₹799 if we print and post it and send you the tracking | Same day to draft; delivery in days | A dated, provable demand with an exact figure and a deadline. Often the moment the standoff ends. Always the record everything after it depends on. |
| Advocate drafts and sends the notice | Commonly several thousand rupees, and higher in cities | Days, depending on the advocate | The same first step, from a law firm's letterhead. Worth it where the facts are genuinely complicated or the amounts are large. |
| Rent Court / rent-control forum | Filing costs plus representation | Months | The dedicated landlord–tenant forum. In Tamil Nadu the fast route generally depends on a registered tenancy agreement — see below. |
| Civil suit | The largest of these, by a distance | Years — landlords in this position routinely describe two to five, sometimes longer | A judgment, eventually. Almost always the wrong first move, and it still expects you to have made a demand first. |
Advocate fees, filing costs and timelines vary widely by city, forum and the complexity of the dispute — the columns above describe the ranges landlords commonly report, not quotations.
The arithmetic most landlords never do: put the arrears you are chasing next to the cost of the first formal step. If he owes you two months on a ₹25,000 rent, the demand costs you a fraction of one month's rent. If he owes you eight, the comparison stops being close.
Build the ledger and pull the statements
Two hours of admin. Everything below is faster and stronger because of it.
Send the formal demand for the arrears
In your own name, with the exact months, the exact total, and a clear deadline to pay. Keep the proof of sending.
He pays, he negotiates, or he ignores it
Two of those three are good outcomes. If he offers a repayment plan, put it in writing before you accept a rupee of it.
Decide on possession, with a record behind you
This is the point at which the eviction demand or the forum route becomes the sensible next step — and where having demanded the rent first makes the difference.
You can write it yourself — everything above is what a good one contains. If you would rather not, we build it from your ledger and your dates, serve-ready, in your own name, in a few minutes: ₹299 to download and send it yourself, or ₹799 and we print it, post it by Registered Post with acknowledgement, and email you the tracking number so the proof of delivery is yours.
You see the full draft before you pay anything. We are a document service, not a law firm.
We would rather tell you this than sell you the wrong thing. Go to a qualified advocate, not to a document service, if:
For everything else — the ordinary case of a tenant who stopped paying, stopped answering, and has not left — the first step is the same one an advocate would take, and you can take it today.
Agreements.co.in provides legal information, not legal advice. This guide describes the position in general terms across India and is not a substitute for an advocate advising on your facts. Rent and tenancy law differs by state, and timelines and costs vary by forum. Where your situation involves a threat to anyone's safety, contact the police.