She has already asked for a jury trial. She asked for that at the first hearing date. That’s why it is taking so long. I still have the feeling that once I have my lawyer she will get her legal aid worker to delay it again come the 30th. I think even a good lawyer has to follow the court proceedures.
Does anybody here know when a house is considered “in foreclosure”? Is it right at the point the lender files lis pendens, or after the auction? This seems to be some kind of sticking point for legal aid.
Have to agree with Mike that you should’ve had an attorney from the beginning.
Had to do a full eviction once. When the tenant’s mom who was paying his rent told me on Jan 1, New Years Day that the rent won’t be paid, I got hold of my attorney on Jan 2, first thing in the morning, 9:00AM.
This guy was a friend of my wifes’s, and worked legal aid out of college for tenants and his job was to drag things out for them, and a typical eviction of his for the tenant goes like this:
First hearing (scheduled for 30 days) postponed, no excuse needed, rescheduled for 30 days.
Rescheduled hearing - lawyer shows up with a doctor’s note, tenant sick, rescheduled another 30 days.
Third hearing - laywer show up, family emergency, begs for another postponement.
In the meantime, they’ll file for all types of violations.
Hearing comes - tells the judge about all the violations.
Eviction granted.
Tenant stays past eviction - needs another 45 days for the marshalls to come.
He generally drags it out for a full 9 months, or more, in tenant friendly courts here. So far, you haven’t seen nothing yet.
Thanks for the advise and I do know what needs to be done. Its just that I have had so much good fortune for the past 15 years representing myself with the legal system. Gotten out of dozens of tickets from my younger days. Successefully sued Alstate And Statefarm in tort trails and gotten paid off judgements from contractors who ripped off me mom and pop.
Frank Chin-
I can see her trying all of those tricks. So how do you get them out quicker???
Frank Chin- propertymanager-
Attorney from day one is great advice to all us virgins but then how would you procceed from there. If the tenant asks for a jury trial how can you speed it up? I think that in Ohio and NY defendants can request a trial by jury? And thats got to take a few weeks to schedule. Correct?
Having a legal aid lawyer is like going to the free clinic when you have a brain tumor. It is better than nothing, but you aren’t going to find the sharpest lawyers there. A good real estate lawyer representing you can make legal arguments for you and prevent a lot of this freebie lawyer nonsense from ever getting past the judge. The freebie legal aid scumbag lawyer can succeed against ignorant landlords but not against a good real estate attorney.
I think what everyone is trying to tell you is we don’t have the knowledge to assist you. We are real estate people. When we get in trouble this deep, we go to a lawyer. Therefore, we really can’t provide much, if any, assistance, because at this point we would not be personally involved. The lawyer would handle it at this point and we just stand there and nod our heads in agreement.
make sure when you file the suit, you didn’t choose “posting”, means serve by certified mail,
if you choose certified mail, if they don’t show up, case continues.
make sure you choose “personal serve”, you need to have sheriff officer to serve the deadbeat,
then they have to show up, otherwise, you win by default.
The thing that hurts the most (besides losing $$$) is that I have done everything legally correct. Given the proper notice in the proper form, waited the allotted time before filing, filed and got the Sheriffs office to serve the summons. And what happens? She asks for a jury trial. Once she did that the case gets transfered to another court. One week later at the other court she is a no show but the judge wants to give her another chance. The next week her legal aid lawyer shows up and starts talking the legal mumbo-jumbo about Discovery. The judge then sets the case for 30 days later.
My biggest mistakes were not starting the process sooner and not having a lawyer to begin with. If I had a lawyer, MAYBE, after she did not show up, my attorney could have gotten an ex parte judgment right away. If I had a lawyer, MAYBE, he could have said something when her lawyer started talking the legal mumbo-jumbo about Discovery and gotten it done sooner. Do not accept sob stories, we’ve all got’em.
bovine,
I have to say, you live in a horrible place, where law favors tenants TOO MUCH!
As a landlord you didn’t do anything wrong, if I were you , I will do the same thing.
That judge is an IDIOT!
I feel very sorry for you, please consider to work with an attorney to solve the problem.
1.next time when you investing or buying properties, please make sure what is the tenant’s name.
get their first name , middle name and last name, go to local court webpage to check their civil and criminal record. if they have eviction record, don’t buy the building until the seller agree to get them out of there. the court records are public information.
you said the tenant had been evicted for 3 times, that means she is an expert in how to messing with landlord. is there anyway to locate who successfully evicted her before? where did she live before? who are her ex-landlords? try to find out this information may help you get some tip. on the courts web i mentioned above, you can find this information. it is very easy!
I think maybe her ex-landlords hired attorneys to get rid of her, at least you can ask the
lawfirm’s name, and which attorney dealt with her, a good attorney can beat her again!
I completely agree that if you can have the seller remove the problem by all means do it. But from what I’ve read here some of the best deals come from distressed landlords. If you remove the problem of them having to deal with that F*ed up tenant then that may earn you a huge discount.
Only 1 previous eviction I can positively confirm. They put the last 4 digits of her SS# on the complaint. I think I will do this if warranted in the future.
On a side note I Googled the legal aid lawyer my tenant(trespasser) has and found an interview she gave with a local newspaper. In it she is quoted as saying “While we are limited in terms of how much our agencies can do in court, we can often “buy some time” for the client by providing information and advice…” Amazing considering she has been the owner of numerous rentals in a condo building. I guess she never got burned.
Just wanted to give a little update to all. She is still in my home but her attorney told the court last week that she had found a place and would be gone by next week… Yeah right we’ll see. The procedure has been drawn out by the fact that she asked for a jury trial and thus I had to answer a set of interrogatories and submit my own set of interrogatories for her to answer. Her lawyer of course said my Answers were incomplete, which they were not. That bought her another 2 weeks. Now she claims to have found a new place so the judge gave her another 2 weeks. She can easily come to court after the 2 weeks and drag this out some more. I feel lucky that the judges I have been before have honored my request for the “soonest possible date”. Most of the lawyers who are representing clients all seem to ask for a 30-day continuance. The ones that do fight still seem to only end up with the same 2 weeks I get.
I did not use a lawyer even though that would/might have been the best thing to do. I said previously that I would hire the lawyer but after sitting in on numerous hearings it seemed that 90% of jury trials were settled before the trial and the rest the judge ruled in favor of the landlord. If you have more time/patience than money you can do this process yourself. Follow all the rules about serving and filing the notices correctly and keep written documentation. It may take you more time because some people seem to respond better under the threat of authority i.e. police or other members of the judicial system. If you’ve got the money then by all means hire a professional gun. I talked to 2 lawyers whose style in court I liked and they won. After their cases I spoke with both about my case and their fees. Both were about $200 per hour with a $1500-$1700 retainer.
If anyone knows a good R.E. lawyer in Chicago with much better rates for evictions please PM me.
I guarantee that the attorney fees would have been far less than what this will total when all is said and done. Stop screwing around and get a facking attorney!!!
Geesh! It has been two months Bovine - stioll going!
You have many thousands of dollars tied up in your property. The tenant and the candy smile legal aid will just keep sticking you as long as you let them. next two weeks is that there will be a delay getting into the next house and it will be another 2 weeks. Get the blasted lawyer and be done with it.
A firend of mine played the same game you did, always expecting it would be done on the next court date. The legal aid candy smile drug it out for 15 MONTHS!
Gert the fracking lawyer NOW - cheap or not. Get the Fracking lawyer NOW! :guns
Of course the tenant did not leave last week as her lawyer told the court she would the last time we were in court. The Judge gave the tenant 2 more weeks, and said that if she is not gone by then he will automatically rule in my favor on the grounds of non compliance to the order. This is what I’ve been wanting from the beginning. Would a lawyer have gotten this sooner?
I’ll update when/if she leaves.
I did not see your location. In my state of New Hampshire, I don’t think this would have happened because the landlord-tenant law is fairer. I didn’t say fair.
One of the best advantages a good RE attorney can give you is credibility. A responsible housing court judge will tend to trust a good attorney more because she or he knows the attorney is also responsible.
And a problem that we have as small landlords is that, because we fortunately don’t go before judges that often, they don’t know us. We might be honest, we might be full of it, the judges don’t know. I would always recommend an atty for legal evictions for these reasons.
Bovine, sorry for your situation, but yours is just another perfect example of how broken the legal system is and how the low lifes and criminals have more rights than the rest of us.
Mike, while I love these boards, you seem to constantly preach your IRON FIST landlord ways and anyone who disagrees or has their own approach either doesnt know crap or hasnt been a landlord for long.
I had made the same buyout suggestion Lucky did awhile ago which you quickly dismissed as stupidity, you know where I learned that from? The TOP members of my local REI Club, guys worth big $$$$$$ and surely not hanging around forums.
Each situation and tenant is different and nobody is saying to setup some buy them out everytime they stiff you program, but the instant you play super tough guy and back them into a corner, you end up with trashed apts and still NO money as these scumbags have nothing to lose anyways.
These forums are the greatest for exchanging opinions, the instant they start getting mixed in as fact is what I have issue with. :rolleyes
Mike, while I love these boards, you seem to constantly preach your IRON FIST landlord ways
Expecting the tenants to pay the rent is NOT “IRON FIST” landlord ways. If you want to pay people to steal from you - have at it! If you want every deadbeat in town to know that you’re a weak landlord - have at it!
...you know where I learned that from? The TOP members of my local REI Club, guys worth big $$$$$$ and surely not hanging around forums.
It seems to me that you are very foolish to hang around with the ignorant hillbillies here! After all, you have access to great advice from smart investors worth big $$$$$$$$ and they are certainly too good to hang around these silly forums! I’m sure that no one here is offended.