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In 2010 I went to court against my tenants after they left me with a house that was not exactly how it was when they moved in...
I even took part of the carpet to small claims court as evidence since it looked like someone had done a # 2 on it...my house was disgusting. Dirty, dirty and more dirty.
This home is located in a resort style community and it took us a lot of time and effort to get it back to move in condition.
I was not out of rent but I felt so bad that I wanted to let the tenants clearly know that this was a huge NO!
The tenants showed up and counter sued me for 3 x the security deposit even after I already after 2 days informed them of multiple costs that would be deducted and the certified letter was delivered within 30 days. On top of that Florida doesn't have 3 x security deposit to be paid if an owner in't on time to pay it back or notify about the deductions so it was directly thrown out.
I made sure to get the judgment certified and also reported these tenants to multiple "bad tenant" websites and over time the tenants kept asking me take it off the internet and they would pay me back and at one point they started to repay me and then stopped again. I told them that once they would have paid in full the remarks would be removed if possible or otherwise an added remark would be placed.
After not hearing from them for another year (the judgment was given in 201) after their last partial payment they now have reached out to settle which of course means I don't get a full payment incl. all the interest but I get a very decent settlement payment which is moe than in most cases and the tenants have a chance to move on and get this chapter behind them since this judgment and remarks online seem to hurt them in getting a promotion and for another rental or other things in their life.
When tenants are real dead beats usually they will not pay back butthe ones who tried to get out and leave the place in bad shape and think they were smarter than you, may do the same as these tenants are doing now.
So please go to court and get a judgment. It will save other LL from getting to deal with the same issues and it helps you if others do the same and you run a background check since it will only show up if others will file a case, otherwise you may deal with bad tenants who never were held responsible and keep doing what they are good at...
Well done - and the same MO applies to tenants who've been shafted by landlords. I'm a firm advocate of sticking up for principles and confess to getting very irritated by those who complain and complain on forums and in person but won't follow through because, "it's too much trouble" and/or, "I'll never see the money even if I do win".
Well done - and the same MO applies to tenants who've been shafted by landlords. I'm a firm advocate of sticking up for principles and confess to getting very irritated by those who complain and complain on forums and in person but won't follow through because, "it's too much trouble" and/or, "I'll never see the money even if I do win".
Good for you - well done!
Yep, I'm with you on that one (and backed it up by going to court despite a lawyer telling me "it wasn't worth my time")!
I agree that bad LL should be taken to court as well and there are plenty of these around.
We own a brokerage and property management company and deal with owners on a daily base and have dropped owners when they don't want to fix items. Overal most owners are very reasonable but now and then we have to deal with real A$$...like we have one now that we are very happy to drop when the contract is over and we can't wait for that to happen.
Another home owner was upset that there wasn't break lease in the contrac for the LL to break the lease since he wanted to move back in and kick the tenants out...we told him he could make an offer to pay for moving expenses and perhaps one month rent and he got very upset with us so he decided to wait until the lease was over to move in but then started to trespass on the property prior to the tenants had to move out and thn demanded from us to keep the security deposit. Of course we didn't and moved the security depsit over since we had aother rental that came available and the tenants are still renting through us...and to our suprise the nasty owner did apologized a year later for hisbehavor which according to him was due to financial distress.
The bad tenants reporting websites are a great tool but you need certain info to upload their names and combined with the public records, is probably why the tenant is going to pay me tomorrow!
But they still started to scam me by giving me $100 less than agreed upon and I told the wife that I would walk away and not sign unless the agreed amount was paid...so she got me the other $100 right away.
We met at the bank and I signed the form so they have proof of me settling with them...she was less then friendly and actually plain rude but I couldn't care less...I have my money and it seems they had huge issues with the judgment showing up all these 3.5 years and one thingies for sure, posting on bad tenants websites was helpful and the internet remembers most things for a long time. Hopefully they learned their lesson.
One advise to others in the same position. Don't accept a money order or personal check to settle, just cash money and have them hand it over at the bank so you can deposit it rig away and if the bank accepts it you at least know the bills are for real and not fake.
That is great. I know from your posts and when you helped me with advice you are very honest and see things from both the LL and tenants view.
You know I always feel LL and tenants need to work together rather then on opposite teams. Just like a tenant wants a good LL a LL wants a good tenant.
But they still started to scam me by giving me $100 less than agreed upon and I told the wife that I would walk away and not sign unless the agreed amount was paid...so she got me the other $100 right away.
We met at the bank and I signed the form so they have proof of me settling with them...she was less then friendly and actually plain rude but I couldn't care less...I have my money and it seems they had huge issues with the judgment showing up all these 3.5 years and one thingies for sure, posting on bad tenants websites was helpful and the internet remembers most things for a long time. Hopefully they learned their lesson.
One advise to others in the same position. Don't accept a money order or personal check to settle, just cash money and have them hand it over at the bank so you can deposit it rig away and if the bank accepts it you at least know the bills are for real and not fake.
I use any website I can see since some no longer exist but the names stay out there and I only use the ones where you have to enter a little bit more info so you can't just enter someone you don't like...but we enter all our bad tenants, nobody escapes!
Recently we had one who applied and paid all the fees which were more than normal since they had to be approved by a HOA and then they asked for a lease agreement and signed it and would provide us with the security deposit within one hour after signing...than calling something came up and it would be dropped off in the evening in our overnight drop box...not there in the morning and only 2 days later they decided not to move forward. Now we had to deal with a signed agreement with an owner who also had signed and the process with the HOA took almost 10 days to get it back in writing even though we knew about te approval pretty fast. The owner was upset since we took the property off the market due to the approval, but also informed others that this tenant was in the process of being approved and others had find a different place by the time we knew about the tenants cold feet.
The tenant has a lease break part in the lease and we would have negotiated to get her off the hook and the owner happy as well but this tenants thought by becoming nasty at first and then non responsive they probably thought they outsmarted everyone....
Nobody will go to court since it is not worth it but we warned them that we will enter it in the bad tenant data base and that has happened so with any internet search their name will come up
There are responsibilities for any adult when you enter into a legal agreement!
Btw the property is still not occupied since the bedrooms are on the smaller side and no garage even though it is brand new construction and bought by a not so smart investor who thought they know it all and make a quick buck to rent it out, but couldn't do it by themself and we even have difficulties to getit rented due to the rent amount the owner wants to receive. We already lowered it twice ...
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