I’ve passed off the judgment to a Collections lawyer who is going to try to collect money from the settlement that my former tenants receive every year. We set up contingency compensation where they’ll receive one-third of what is collected. At this point, I just want to get this thing over with since it has been dragging on _way_ too long.
Check out this link to see some more great pictures of strange houses.
I hadn’t thought of this technique, but maybe I could use it if ever presented with a similar situation.
A New York landlord hired a marching band to drown out the sound of his tenants protesting asbestos contamination.
Many tenants at the midtown building, owned by Kent Swig of Swig Equities, have been driven out to make room for the construction of luxury condos at the site, the New York Post reported Monday.
The tenants remaining also have complained they have been subjected to airborne asbestos by bad renovation work.
“It’s a question of health and safety … . We have four independent tests that show asbestos,” said resident Alan Kroll, who was among about two dozen protesters outside the building Sunday.
Swig decided to drown out the protesters by hiring the Steppers Marching Band, although the move mostly just drew a curious crowd.
The Department of Environmental Protection has ordered construction halted until the asbestos is cleaned up.
Thanks mshades for the image.
Depending on what news sites you read, you may be familiar with justin.tv (justin.tv blog). Since March 19th, 2007, Justin has been wearing a camera attached to his hat 24/7, and streaming the video and accompanying audio over the internet for everybody to watch. All of this has been run out of a single two bedroom apartment in San Francisco.
Many things have happened since the camera was first turned on. A viewer prank called the police and reported a stabbing in the apartment. Shortly afterwards, the police entered the apartment with guns drawn, amusing viewers around the world who were watching it live. The next day, somebody reported a fire and six firetrucks showed up, though to the viewers’ dismay it was not aired live (techcrunch).
Other problems are occurring too. Other tenants are complaining about the traffic at all hours of the night. Tenants have also complained that they were getting filmed in common areas without their permission (SF Chronicle).
All of this has obviously upset the landlords, Trinity Management Services, who operates over 50 apartment complexes in San Francisco. After searching the apartment a few times looking for lease violations, they eventually filed for eviction against justin.tv. Not only that, but they have stopped renting other apartments to applicants for simply knowing Justin.
As a landlord, I can completely understand why Trinity would want to get rid of these guys. It seems like the case should be pretty straightforward, if they’re violating the lease, causing the other tenants to complain, and disturbing the peace: kick them out.
However, then the situation got sticky for Trinity.
With all the publicity that the justin.tv team commands, websites sprung up to try to stop the eviction. Sites like Don’t Evict Justin were put up in an attempt to bring down the management company, using all tactics possible, including digging up dirt and court documents. Worse yet, it appears that a lot of Trinity’s business comes from young entrepreneurs/professionals, which means that by fighting justin.tv they may end up alienate a significant part of their tenant base.
I find it somewhat odd that these young entrepreneurs do not empathize more with their landlords and the other tenants. They are callously disrupting the lives of the other tenants as well as impacting the business of Trinity. It is sad to see that they’re taking the all-too-common “Landlords are Evil, Screw ‘Em” stance and ignoring everybody else.
My question for the Shmandlord readers is, what should Trinity do? How could a landlord protect themselves against this (although obviously the probability that it would happen to any given landlord is virtually zero)?
I received notice that my ex-tenants, the ones against which I received the default judgment, filed an appeal. First of all, I still don’t understand how they are allowed to appeal a default judgment when they did not show up in court the first time around, but apparently they are. What exactly are they appealing?
Anyhow, in response I had to file my formal claim against them, which has already been received by the court. The thing that was interesting about this complaint is that the court would tell me absolutely _nothing_ about how to format it, about the process, or anything. To each question, they recommended I get a lawyer or go to a law library and look up the state’s civil procedure laws. While I did not pay a lawyer to help, I was able to consult with one in order to get all the paperwork together properly.
Now that I’ve filed the complaint, the defendants are most likely going to have to get themselves a lawyer in order to take it to the next level.
I am particularly curious if they had planned this from the beginning (of the small claims process). Are they aware of how much trouble it is to file the formal complaint, and if so, chose not to show up in court with the intension of appealing?
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:
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
After finding my old tenants, I filed a small claims suit against them. The court date is set to February 20th, although the tenants haven’t been served yet. I spoke with the constable today and he seems to take pride in his ability to serve. He assured me that he has several tricks up his sleeve which he will use if necessary.
At this point, if I do not hear anything from the court then it means that they were served and the court date is on. If not, I’ll hear something within two weeks.
My fingers are crossed!
As you already know, I am having trouble with another set of tenants [read].
When they started receiving their checks from worker’s comp, it turns out the amount was less than they initially told me. Apparently, they’re only able to pay 60% of their rent each month. Obviously this is unacceptable, so I filed for eviction and the hearing will be on Friday February 2nd.
The key points in the situation are:
Ugh.