A Little Justice

Tenants have the upperhand in our twisted legal system. There is no doubt about that! Unfortunately, debtors prisons are a thing of the past and people no longer are required to be responsible for their actions. Landlords see this injustice every day. A tenant can stop paying the rent and completely trash their rental without significant reprisals. Yes, the landlord can evict them, but this typically takes well over a month, even in Ohio. Yes, the landlord can sue the tenant for damages and will almost always win. However, the landlord will almost never be able to collect.

Last week, I found myself once again in court. This time wasn't for an eviction case, but rather to testify for another landlord (a friend) about the damage an ex-tenant caused. The landlord made a big mistake by renting a duplex that needed repair. She rented the apartment as-is and with discounted rent and it was agreed that the tenant would do the repairs. Please note that this is illegal in most states. The landlord is legally responsible for providing the tenant with a habitable property and this responsibility can NOT be transferred to the tenant. This was a BIG mistake on the part of the landlord.

This arrangement went bad from the very beginning. No only did the tenant NEVER pay any rent, but in fact the tenant slowly disassembled the interior of the property and sold it. Everything that contained any metal was stolen and sold as scrap. The furnace was stolen. The water lines were stolen. The furnace ducts were removed and stolen. Then, after the metal was gone, the tenant started destroying the enterior of the property. He even stole all the kitchen cabinets! Quite honestly, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything quite like this. In my opinion, this scumbag tenant should be spending the next 50 years in prison at hard labor. However, in our wacked out judicial system, he wasn't even charged with a crime.

Anyway, the tenant got a FREE lower-than-a-snake, scumbag legal aid lawyer (no, I don't like them). My friend hired a lawyer at $125 per hous. The scumbag legal aid lawyer REQUESTED A JURY TRIAL for the eviction. This was an attempt to stall and it worked. About three months later, the tenant was evicted. My friend contacted the police about everything that was stolen. They would not prosecute or charge the tenant with any crime. They said it was a civil matter. Therefore, my friend sued the tenant for damages. The tenant countersued, which was a little ridiculous considering he had lived free for 8 months and stolen just about everything except the sidewalk. The case finally went to court and the tenant (with his scumbag legal-aid lawyer) agree to a consent decree in which the tenant would pay the landlord for damages by a certain date. That never happened. So, the landlord was back in court this week and I was asked to be a witness to the damage. This never happened either. The tenant didn't show up and the free scumbag legal aid lawyer had pulled some technical trickery that my friend hadn't understood. To make a long story short, after about an hour of meetings between the judge, my friend, and the free scumbag legal aid lawyer, the case was concluded with another consent decree with my friend being awarded a whopping $500. Did I mention that our legal system is a big joke?

So, where does that leave us as landlords? We can evict bad tenants and we can spend money to get worthless judgements. However, every now and then there is a hint of justice. This week, I received a letter from my local metropolitan housing office regarding one of my ex-tenants that didn't pay her portion of the Section 8 payment for her final month. In addition, she didn't pay her final water bill either. When she left (a couple of years ago), I contacted my local Section 8 office and they terminated her from the Section 8 program for failing to pay her portion of the rent.

This weeks letter from Metropolitan Housing was a landlord reference form designed to determine whether the tenant would be eligible to live in a free public housing project. With the referral I sent to Metropolitan Housing, she won't get in. I reported every incident that I had with this tenant. I included a copy of the letter I received from Section 8 stating that she was being dropped from the Section 8 program for failing to pay her portion of the last month's rent. I included a copy of the unpaid water bill and finally I looked up her criminal record on the local court web site and sent that too (she was arrested several times after she left)! So, while I will probably never collect the rent she didn't pay ($58) and her water bill ($123), I got a lot of satisfaction in knowing that the taxpayers won't be paying to house this deadbeat! Maybe, that's a little justice after all!!!