Ok.. my story:

I have a small home in Texas. The tenants have a lease to own contract. They pay a sum of 400 a month.
June, they sent a 300 money order and a 100 check (which made me scared). The check bounced.
I got notice around mid July that the check did not clear and they still had not paid rent for July.
I sent a letter requesting the 100 in a money order, fees involved and July's rent. No response.
I sent another letter in Mid-August requesting the 100 from June, fees, July's rent and August's rent. I gave then 10 days to satisfy this.
A few days later I received an envelope containing two money orders. One said 1/2 July Rent, and the other said 1/2 August Rent. So, I am now missing 100 from June, 200 from July, 200 from August and the fees involved.
I received the return receipt on August 2nd.. and it has been well over 10 days.
I have now written a letter stating they had until Sept 5th and no longer. If no correspondence is received by this date I will serve them with a notice to Vacate/Eviction.

I do not know how to do this. I am playing this all by ear and have never had to do such a thing before. The tenant is a family of 4 and the man of the house is a Sheriff Deputy. Im tired of being the last bill paid each month and it is damaging my credit and my hopes of buying my own home soon.

Does anyone know the legal path to take to do this right? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure you have everything that you have recieved in relation to this mess. I mean everything including the envelopes that were used. Having no knowledge of TX law that is as far as it goes. But for me in GA I would start with the bad check that is see if it was drawn on a closed account. If so we call that Kiting(sp) and that is a fellony here and I am sure it is there as well. You know I am sure the Civil Court Magistraight from that county will be helpful. I would contact them. If they are not helpful, than ask to speek with the Civil Sherrif who handles disposessories. My court is astute at giving only yes or no answers, the trick is to find the guy who could not be contrued as offering legal advise, typically it is the grunt or field man (deputy). DO NOT OFFER UP THAT THIS TENNANT IS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. Good Luck and sorry about the mispellling.

PS: it may be a wise thing to find a hungry collection Attourney

Ok.. my story:

I have a small home in Texas. The tenants have a lease to own contract. They pay a sum of 400 a month.
June, they sent a 300 money order and a 100 check (which made me scared). The check bounced.
I got notice around mid July that the check did not clear and they still had not paid rent for July.
I sent a letter requesting the 100 in a money order, fees involved and July's rent. No response.
I sent another letter in Mid-August requesting the 100 from June, fees, July's rent and August's rent. I gave then 10 days to satisfy this.
A few days later I received an envelope containing two money orders. One said 1/2 July Rent, and the other said 1/2 August Rent. So, I am now missing 100 from June, 200 from July, 200 from August and the fees involved.
I received the return receipt on August 2nd.. and it has been well over 10 days.
I have now written a letter stating they had until Sept 5th and no longer. If no correspondence is received by this date I will serve them with a notice to Vacate/Eviction.

I do not know how to do this. I am playing this all by ear and have never had to do such a thing before. The tenant is a family of 4 and the man of the house is a Sheriff Deputy. Im tired of being the last bill paid each month and it is damaging my credit and my hopes of buying my own home soon.

Does anyone know the legal path to take to do this right? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Have you stopped by and spoke to him? He might be leaving it up to his wife, and she is not taking care of the situation. (I don't know, but have experienced similar) Law enforcement personell do not want to be on the recieving end of an eviction. It looks real bad to his boss, especially on a $400 house!

The certified receipts I have received back have been signed by both.. once by her and the last by him. I do believe they are both involved. I plan on running down there next week and posting an eviction notice personally.. their deadline is the 5th for payment.

Any pointers on good legit downloadable forms?

I suggest you have an attorney handle this, You will get no help from the Sheriff's office and he has connections. In the future never rent to Law Enforcement, Doctors and Lawyers. These people often feel they are too busy or too powerful to deal with petty things like paying rent.

This is just a suggestion but I would recommend getting an attorney involved. Also try to track down the exact proceedure for evicting someone. Its been my experience with renters who "know the system" that one mis-step and you will find yourself back at step one and dishing out the bucks. The money spent on a good attorney is so worth it. Then after they leave take pictures of everything...and I mean everything. If anything is broken make sure that you go to your local harware store, Lowes, Home Depot, or whatever and price the exact same item and keep the reciept. It's not a bad idea to take a picture of it on the shelf so if you need to go to court you have your proverbial "ducks in a row".

Follow your attorny's instructions and if you have to give back a damage deposit minus costs make sure, please, that you get it back to them with in the time frame dictated by law. Here's hint that I find helpful. Send any correspondence to them certified with a "sign for" reciept. At the same time send a duplicate copy to yourself. This will ensure that your envelope will have the same date stamp as theirs and it will be from a neutral third party. (A.k.a athe Post Office) A very nice thing to have should a judge be involved.

Next time you might want to make sure that you do a quick background check on all applicants. I didn't want to do it at first because I though it would take up to much time. I found out it saved all the time and agravation of the eviction process. Check with your attorney and see if you can charge future applicants for the background check as an application fee. It doesn't cost much and then you know who your renting to.

I paid an attorney to look over the lease I intended to use with my rentals. Its well worth the money to hear their advice or even to allow them to "correct" any errors or missed "potential problems" so as to help you in the future.

This is just a suggestion and not ment as legal advice in any way, shape, or form. Good luck.