Landlord Shmandlord

Small claims today went much smoother than I had expected.

The defendants did not show up, so a default judgment was entered for the full amount plus $165 for filing fees. The defendants have 30 days to dispute the judgment, otherwise I can begin to collect.

To be more specific, I showed up 30 minutes early. There were two cases being heard, and the other plaintiffs showed up 10 minutes after I did. A few minutes later, the court clerk stopped in to explain that one of the defendants called to say that he was going to be 10 minutes late — but the clerk didn’t know which defendant because he didn’t leave his name.

Ten minutes after the scheduled starting time, the judge came in. He was very curt, asked for my name and asked if I knew whether or not the defendants would show. I said I didn’t. He then went out to check if they had arrived, on returning stated that he was going to enter a default judgment because they failed to show. He then sarcastically said, “Good luck collecting” and that was it. I’m not sure if he made that comment because he knew the defendants from elsewhere or simply because it’s not always easy to collect.

I am fairly confident that I will be able to collect. Besides garnishing salaries, I am going to go after an insurance company that pays the girlfriend a substantial sum every year on her birthday due to an accident she had when she was very young.

Do any Shmandlord readers have tips for or stories about collecting money from a judgment?

I have all my paperwork ready to go. I’ll post when I get back home.

Court went very well this morning against my Pain in the Wrist tenants.

We both signed a “Consent to Enter Judgment” agreement. This allows the tenant to remain as long as they follow the terms outlined in the agreement. If they do not, a judgment is automatically filed against them and the landlord can promptly file a Warrant of Removal without going back to court. The tenants would then be physically removed a few days later.

There was nothing for me to lose by going with this agreement. The tenants brought one month’s rent to the hearing — this was on top of the three-fifths of a month’s rent that they’ve already paid over the past few weeks. While they still have a bit of catching up to do, if if turns out that they are unable to comply with the agreement they will be evicted by the court officer within two weeks.

The terms of the agreement are:

• Tenant to pay landlord one full month’s rent today (the tenants were given this money by a relative)
• Tenant to continue paying landlord weekly. This money goes toward “arrearage”.
• Tenant to pay the full rent each month in addition to the weekly payments.
• Any money that landlord receives goes first toward current rent, followed by arrearage only after the current rent is paid.
• If the tenant fails to make a payment a judgment is automatically entered and the landlord can file a Warrant of Removal.

The big question you most certainly have is: how are they going to be able to pay _more_ than their rent each month when they’ve been having trouble keeping up with the rent alone?

The answer to this question lies in a person whom I met today: the county legal advisor. The legal advisor is present at all eviction hearings and will help any tenants who come to her for help. My tenants spoke with her earlier this week, and she has been working with them on several different tactics to get out of their trouble.

First off, they’re trying a county homeless prevention program which helps people in need. It is uncertain how much money the program has left this fiscal year, but the legal advisor believes that there is at least some and will request it.

Second, my tenants were approved for some form of rental assistance program — not Section 8. The group has apparently been completely non-responsive after sending out the acceptance letter, including when I spoke with them. However, the legal services attorney was pretty confident that she would be able to get them to speed up the process. She will be working with my tenants to get them out of this mess as quickly as possible, which means getting their rent paid in a timely fashion.

There is one other note that I want to address. Despite my earlier advice, I did not use a lawyer for this eviction case. I didn’t because the circumstances were very different than last time, where I was very afraid of my potential liability due to the dogs. This time, I wasn’t using eviction to protect myself from civil suits, but instead to help collect rent. If I were to hire a lawyer, I would definitely have to shell out at least a few extra hundred in legal fees. I could collect the fees from the tenant, but this would unnecessarily complicate the situation. Instead, I was using the eviction to help encourage the tenants to pay the rent, and in fact wasn’t sure we would even make it to trial. I also felt comfortable with the paper work because I had already had experience with the process. I would still recommend that a landlord hire an attorney for his or her first eviction proceedings.

Anyway, I am very content with the way things went right now. I am just hoping that the legal advisor will finish helping them out of this mess.

Picture: mike_ormsby