Manage evictions with state timelines and attorney access

Eviction timelines vary widely by state, and most of the work happens outside your walls, at the attorney’s office and the courthouse. Without a shared system, status lives in emails and spreadsheets, and you find out a file has stalled when someone asks.

In this walkthrough you set up eviction cases in QBO. Each eviction is a case on the property, with its own fields for occupancy, court case, and parties. QBO picks a workflow for the property’s state so every step has a realistic due date, the attorney firm works the file directly (in QBO or from its own system), notices are generated from your Word templates, and every note and email stays on the case.

Who it’s for

Power users setting up default servicing or REO operations, and property managers who refer evictions to outside counsel. Attorneys and processors use the result: worklists, tasks, and the eviction record.

Prerequisites

• Properties in QBO (evictions attach to a property).
• Your eviction attorney firms set up as organizations, with users for the firms that will log in.
• The steps of your eviction process and the expected duration of each, by state. Industry timeline references, such as USFN’s state timeline matrices, are a useful starting point; your counsel should confirm them.
• Word templates for the notices you send.
• Permission to create process, workflow, task, document, and message templates, and rules matrices.

Building blocks used

• Cases: the eviction process, its template, and attorney assignment
• Workflow: steps, durations, holds, and state-specific templates
• Rules: the matrix that chooses a workflow by state
• Forms: attorney tasks
• Document Management: notices and court filings
• Messaging: notes and email on the case
• Security: attorney access limited to their own files

What an eviction record holds

An eviction is a QBO process (case) with eviction-specific fields. It inherits everything a process has: template, status, type, open and close dates, assignments, workflows, tasks, documents, and messages. It adds:

Field	Purpose
Eviction	The eviction’s name. QBO generates one if you leave it blank.
Property	The property being recovered. The eviction is filed under it.
Occupancy Status	Who is in the property, such as owner, tenant, unknown, or vacant. It’s a reporting dimension, so you can count and age evictions by occupancy.
Court Case Number	The case number once the attorney files.
Plaintiff	The contact in whose name the action is filed.
Realtor	The agent working the property, for access, occupancy checks, or cash-for-keys negotiations.

Evictions also report by State, taken from the property’s address, so dashboards can compare timelines across states.

Steps

1. Create a workflow for each timeline

From Templates > Workflows, create a workflow template applying to Eviction for each distinct state timeline. States with the same process and similar durations can share one.

Typical steps:

Step	Type	Notes
Referral to Attorney	Add a Task	The attorney acknowledges the referral.
Notice to Vacate	Generate a Document	Your notice template, merged with the property and occupant data.
Notice Period	Add a Task	Set the Duration to the state’s notice period.
Complaint Filed	Add a Task	The attorney records the filing and the court case number.
Hearing	Add a Task	Hearing date and outcome.
Judgment	Add a Task	Judgment date and terms.
Writ of Possession	Add a Task	Writ issued and lockout scheduled.
Possession Obtained	Add a Task	Lockout completed, or the property surrendered.

Give each step a Duration from your state timeline, and use Business Days where the deadline is defined that way. Where a deadline runs from a date rather than from the previous step (for example, a number of days after the hearing), set the step’s Reference Date to that date. QBO uses these to project estimated start and completion dates for every step, so worklists and reports can show which files are behind.

Add hold templates applying to Eviction for events that stop the clock, such as a bankruptcy filing or a court continuance. Holds pause the workflow and record how long each file was held, so timeline reports can show performance with and without delays you don’t control. See Holds.

2. Choose the workflow by state

Create a rules matrix, for example Eviction Workflow:

• Input: State. If QBO doesn’t find the state in the eviction’s data, set the input’s XPath to the property’s state.
• Output: DecisionTemplate, the name of the workflow template to start.

Make State a List input with a weight above zero, so one row can cover several states (TX,OK,AR) and a state match outranks the default. Add a row per state or group of states with the workflow template it uses. A row with a blank state matches anything, so it works as the default. See Rules.

3. Create the eviction process template

From Templates > Processes, add a process template:

Setting	Value
Process Template	Eviction
Applies To	Property
Sibling	Eviction
Workflow	Matrix: Eviction Workflow, with a default template as a fallback
Organizations	A collection of your approved eviction firms

Sibling makes each process an eviction, with the fields above. When an eviction opens, QBO evaluates the matrix against it and starts the workflow it returns. If the matrix returns nothing, the template’s fixed workflow starts instead. See Choosing the workflow.

To keep different kinds of eviction apart (tenant-occupied versus post-foreclosure, for example), create one process template per kind and give each its own statuses and close reasons.

4. Give attorneys access to their files

Assign the attorney firm to each eviction as its Assigned organization (or Vendor). Assignment grants the firm’s users access to that eviction through row-level partner security: they see the files assigned to them, with their tasks and documents, and nothing else on the property or loan. See Assignment and partner access.

Firms then work in one of two ways:

• In QBO. Paralegals pick up eviction tasks from their worklist, complete them, and upload court filings to the eviction’s documents.

• From their own system. Firms with case-management software update QBO through the API, so nobody re-keys data:

  POST /api/eviction/save?ID=2001&CourtCaseNumber=2026-LT-01234
  POST /api/importform/save?ID=3301&MergeXmlData=1&HearingDate=2026-11-04
  POST /api/attachment/uploadchunk?Object=Eviction&ObjectID=2001&X-File-Name=Judgment.pdf&X-File-Size={size}

  See Forms for developers and Document Management for developers.

5. Generate and mail notices

From Templates > Documents, add a document template for each notice, applying to Eviction, using the Aspose Words generator with your Word template. Reference them from Generate a Document steps so notices merge automatically, or let users generate them from the eviction’s documents panel when they need one off-cycle. See Document Management.

If you send notices by certified mail, the document template’s outbound and return services can deliver the merged notice to a mail vendor and track it. The iMailTracking integration provides certified mail numbers, USPS tracking, and green cards. See Integrations.

6. Keep the conversation on the case

Add notes to an eviction from its Messages panel. Type an email address in To and QBO sends the message by email and keeps a copy on the eviction, so the conversation with counsel stays with the file instead of in someone’s inbox. With an inbound mailbox configured, replies can be linked back to the eviction too. See Messaging.

Message templates applying to Eviction give your team consistent wording for referrals, status requests, and escalations, and Send a Message steps can send them automatically, for example when a step is overdue.

Result

Open an eviction on a property and QBO:

1. starts the workflow for the property’s state, with a projected date for every step
2. gives the assigned attorney firm access to that file, and only that file
3. generates notices from your templates, by workflow or on demand
4. collects filings, hearing results, and the court case number from the attorney, in QBO or by API
5. keeps every document, note, and email on the eviction

Managers can compare evictions by state, occupancy, attorney, and status, and see which files are behind their projected timeline.

Next steps

• Check servicemember status before filing, and record the result on the case with Military Search.
• Measure attorney performance with an audit score on completed tasks. See Scoring.
• See how evictions fit into REO and disposition on Mortgage Servicing.