Suing for back rent- Small Claims or Housing Court? (lease, tenant, eviction)

[Irma10]

Hello everybody,

I would like to get advice from the folks experienced in handling the hard tenants.

I am out of state landlord, and rented the unit first time through the local agent. I already posted here that he messed up the lease, not forwarding me the tenants last month payment.

Now this tenant is behind in rent for 3 months . He keeps saying me what they are going to leave, so he first missed, then decided to withhold his last month, then security deposit.

I sent him 30-days Notice to Quit , but the problem appeared that he faked his name on the lease ( thanks to the agent!). I mean, in the house lives another guy, not who signed the lease.

I was not able to find out till now, since they always paid directly to the bank. Now I hired PM, who discovered tenant's real name taking the personal check from him.

Now, I put his name on Summons&Complaint but I am afraid, court can dismiss the case later, considering Notice to Quit was not properly served, since it does not have the correct name of the tenant.

Other thing- I know, they plan to leave in a close future. What I fear, they can leave before the eviction takes place without paying back rent, so I will not be able collect the judgment.

If in this situation would not be faster to sue them and get the judgment in small claims court instead of housing court? We live in MA which is very pro-tenant, so eviction can take months.

Also, can I provide only e-mail correspondence and 30-days Notice constable receipt as evidence that they are aware about being late with the payments. If I compose demand letter for them, how much grace period for paying rent to provide in this letter before filing in small claims court ?

[PacificFlights]

You need to now contact a lawyer to help because your way beyond the "friendly" advice from a internet forum...............

[ShaneSA]

I was thinking as I read your post that things are so confused and miss handled that you need a lawyer to fix this one. Forget getting advice to do it yourself. That hasn't worked so get a professional.

[Irma10]

Yep, this is my first "bad" tenant and I already made few substantial mistakes on the way. Actually, at first I wanted only to impress them.
Since this is in fact only one month of the rent owed, I try to do it on my own. I never heard from the lawyers anything I did not know myself in my life.
What I worry now about is the timeframe- I found out that in our state I can not use both courts for the same claim, so I need to use more effective one. Considering, he can always ask to transfer the case to housing court for delaying the process, it would be , probably, better to send him another (14-days) Notice to Quit, with his name on it. The first hearing in housing court is scheduled to be in three weeks, I do not think that I will get more speed up process in small claims court.

[mathjak107]

most of the time its silly to waste your time trying to get back rent.. if your tenant declares bankruptcey you get nothing and spent the legal fees to boot. just go for eviction and forget about it. chaulk it up to the joys of being a landlord.

here in nyc we were warned that if our tenant declared bankruptsey the judge may even award her an extra months stay on my back so she can get back on her feet.

like i always say landlording is great . that is until its not.