A three day notice or three day eviction notice may also be called a pay or quit notice. This is a form of notifying a renter who has not paid the rent, is in violation of the lease agreement, or who is conducting illegal activity on the premises that they have three days to leave the property. Variations of three day notice forms and laws exist in many US states, and help landlords evict renters who are in clear violation of rental agreements.

In many states, the three day notice must be legally “served” to the offending tenant or at minimum, hand delivered with a witness present. The notice is not automatically an eviction notice because it does give the renter an opportunity to remedy situations that can be fixed. For instance, a person behind on their rent, or someone keeping pets in a no pet apartment essentially is given three business days, not counting the day of delivery of the three day notice to pay past due rent or to find a new home for pets.

Some situations are such open violations of lease agreements that a three day notice truly does mean the person must leave the apartment in three business days. If a person has been convicted of committing illegal activity on the premises or has created extreme nuisance behavior, they may be evicted with a three day notice even if their rent is paid. In order for this to work, a rental agreement must state that the agreement becomes void if the renter acts in certain ways.

Some states allow tenants to file a response to the three day notice, which can then take time to process and will delay eviction. Filing a response largely depends upon the state you live in and its specific legal provisions. If you do feel you’ve received a three day eviction notice in error, as for nuisance behavior or alleged illegal activities you didn’t commit, you should check with state agencies like fair housing or renting information agencies, to see if you have methods available to prevent eviction. If a tenant disregards the three day notice, the landlord will still have to follow through with the formal eviction process to have the tenant evicted.

In most cases, the three day eviction notice is delivered because of failure to pay rent, and most landlords will offer a certain amount of grace period on rent due. If you are going to have difficulty meeting your rent obligations when they are due, you might want to talk to the landlord to see if he or she is willing to help you work out some form of payment plan that will help you get back on track. Once the three day notice is filed, this kind of conversation is unlikely to have positive results. It’s better to be upfront and ask a landlord in advance if you can have extra time to pay rent.

People who are habitually behind on rent are more likely to get served a pay or quit notice, and probably less likely to be able to negotiate with a landlord. If a landlord serves this notice, but still wants to evict a tenant that habitually doesn’t pay the rent, he or she serves the pay or quit notice first. When a renter pays the amount, the landlord would then have to inform the renter they must leave with a formal eviction notice that gives the renter thirty days to vacate the property.