On July 23, 2013 the NC General Assembly passed an act amending the laws related to Landlord and Resident relationships to shorten the time period required to evict a resident in the State of North Carolina. The law went into effect on September 1, 2013. The amendment will reduce the time period the County Sheriff has to execute the Writ of Possession, after giving notice to the resident of the date and time of the lockout, from seven days to five days.

That means that once the Writ of possession is filed with the Clerk of Courts, the Sheriff will have five days to perform the lock out as opposed to seven days.  Also, the amendment will reduce the waiting period after the execution of the Writ of Possession on a property (lock out) from 10 days to seven days if the resident has left personal belongings in the property.  After the lock out occurs, if the resident has left personal belongings in the home that exceed $500 in value, the waiting period used to be 10 days before disposing of the items.  Now, the waiting period has been reduced to seven days.

To read the full amendment, please visit the following link to the NC General Assembly website:  http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2013&BillID=h802

Although it seems like only a few days, this will reduce the overall eviction process by five days.  For rental property owners who have faced evictions, the process seems to drag between getting the resident out and getting clearance to clean the home.  Now, the entire process will be five days shorter.  This means we can start the rehab process on the property five days sooner.