Cash for keys

Cash for keys is paying an occupant to leave voluntarily rather than removing them through the courts.

It is used constantly in distressed property and it is almost always the better option for everyone involved.

Why it beats eviction#

Speed. Weeks saved, sometimes months. On a property carrying taxes, insurance and financing while producing nothing, time is the largest cost.

Cost. An eviction action, a writ of recovery and sheriff's execution cost money, and they cost more than most cash-for-keys payments.

Condition. This is the underrated one. An occupant being forced out has no reason to leave anything intact — and properties handed back after contested evictions are routinely stripped of copper, fixtures, appliances and anything else that moves.

An occupant paid to leave, with payment conditional on condition, has every reason to hand over a house in reasonable shape.

Getting the number right#

The instinct is to offer as little as possible. That instinct is wrong.

The occupant needs to be able to actually move — a deposit and first month's rent somewhere else, plus the cost of moving. An offer below that is refused not out of stubbornness but because it does not solve their problem.

The right comparison is not against zero. It is against the cost of an eviction plus the additional weeks of holding plus the condition risk.

Structure it properly#

In writing.

A specific date by which the property must be vacated.

Condition terms — broom clean, all belongings removed, fixtures and appliances intact.

Payment at handover, after inspection. Never in advance, and never in instalments before the keys change hands.

A release of any claim to remain.

The payment-on-handover structure is what makes the agreement self-enforcing. An occupant paid upfront has no remaining incentive.

When it is not available#

Where the occupant is a bona fide tenant with rights that survive a foreclosure, the position is different. Federal law requires at least ninety days' notice and may require the lease to be honoured through its term.

Cash for keys can still be offered — a tenant may prefer money and a clean exit to a lease in a building under new ownership. It just cannot be presented as an alternative to rights they actually hold.

Tone matters#

The occupant is losing their home. An approach that treats the situation as a negotiation between adults, rather than as a confrontation, produces agreement far more often — and the agreement is what everyone actually wants.