Any advice for small claims court? This is very long.

[Karen G]

Follow-up

We arrived at Small Claims Court on Monday morning and our property manager came with us ready to testify on our behalf. We had our case very well organized and had pictures and receipts.

Guess what! The guy who was suing us never showed up. The judge dismissed the case.

We were glad to have it dismissed, but upset that we had bought airline tickets and used 15,000 air miles to get them to appear at the courthouse. Now, on top of the initial $1200+ that we had to pay to repair the damages to the house we are out the $1200+ in legal fees the property manager paid & we reimbursed her, the $250 we paid to discuss our case with an attorney, and the cost of the airline tickets.

We probably will sue the guy in small claims court once we have gotten moved into our house. We are within the $5000 limit of damages.

 

[Icarus]

Why didn't you file a countersuit when you were served?

The only thing that could trip up a landlord in a case like this is if you didn't follow the local laws for notifying the tenant in writing within the proper time period of why (specific list of damages) they weren't getting their security deposit back. Presumably, your professional manager took care of that and you can prove it.

If you do file a suit eventually, you can try adding all your expenses (the $1200 for the managers attorney fees) and your actual expenses for this trip to your list of damages.

-David

 

[Karen G]

The lawyer with whom we consulted advised us to wait to see the outcome of the the first case.

Yes, the property manager sent him a letter outlining the reasons he wasn't going to get the deposit back within the specified time. The amount was sent to a collections agency, but she recently found out the tenant somehow got the collections action dropped because he knew the owner of the collections agency. She has since dropped all the collections she had with that company and has resubmitted all of them to another agency.

 

[Icarus]

I guess you're finding out the reason why some landlords don't like to take attorneys as tenants.

Legally, all he had to do is to tell the collection agency that the amount owed is disputed and that he has legal action pending and there's really nothing the collection agency can do to continue to attempt to collect the debt.

-David