Section 3 Unlawful Detainer

• Library: Remedies 2006

There is a difference between “forcible detainer” and “unlawful detainer.” Forcible detainer usually describes an action taken by a landlord who wrongfully dispossesses a tenant. Section 534.020, RSMo 2000, defines forcible entry and detainer. Section 441.233, RSMo 2000 (enacted in 1997), includes additional misconduct by a landlord that also constitutes forcible detainer. An unlawful detainer occurs when the tenant holds over beyond the term of the lease.

Section 534.020 defines forcible entry and detainer:

If any person shall enter upon or into any lands, tenements or other possessions, with force or strong hand, or with weapons, or by breaking open the doors or windows or other parts of a house, whether any person be in it or not, or by threatening to kill, maim or beat the party in possession, or by such words or actions as have a natural tendency to excite fear or apprehension of danger, or by putting out of doors or carrying away the goods of the party in possession, or by entering peaceably and then turning out by force, or frightening, by threats or other circumstances of terror, the party out of possession, and detain and hold the same—in every...