Landlord is Trying to Evict Me

[hemicuda75]

My question involves an eviction in the state of: NJ


Signed a 2 year lease on 12/2010 which should end on 12/2012. Always have payed on time. A few months ago, LL asked if we can move out because he found a tenant that can pay higher rent. We flat out told him no. He continued to "harass" us about moving out, but we always told him no.

Rent is due the 1st of the month. We, like always, sent our check to him through the mail ( not certified mail, stupid, I know) a few days before the 1st. Today, we recieved a "notice of termination" saying since we have not payed the rent our lease is done. In our lease, we have a 7 day notice of termination to remedy the breach. We never received any notice what so ever. The notice of termination was sent certified mail by his lawyers, so it would be logical that he would send the 7 day notice through certified mail also

I am contacting a lawyer tomorrow, but would like some insight from here. We have been leasing from them for about 10 years now, and have always payed on time. We have bank statements that show this for years. The reason we never sent certified was because we always had a good relationship with the LL and no problems ever arose.

[DaveJames]

Are you saying you sent the rent check and the landlord claimed he never received it ? It's not clear how you became delinquent.

You can still fight the eviction in court but must act fast on that.

There should be a dated paper trail, showing your were not given the opp. to cure the claimed rent delinquency in a certain amount of days; and if you can obtain that evidence, you have a good chance on overturning the eviction as I believe you must be given the opp to correct the error.

[SimplyTheBest]

[QUOTE=hemicuda75;521031]My question involves an eviction in the state of: NJ


Signed a 2 year lease on 12/2010 which should end on 12/2012. Always have payed on time. A few months ago, LL asked if we can move out because he found a tenant that can pay higher rent. We flat out told him no. He continued to "harass" us about moving out, but we always told him no. [quote]Tell your LL that you will move on two conditions. 1) You fins an acceptable space and 2) he pays you X $$ for your moving costs and duress, IOW, let him buy you out.

Rent is due the 1st of the month. We, like always, sent our check to him through the mail ( not certified mail, stupid, I know) a few days before the 1st. Today, we recieved a "notice of termination" saying since we have not payed the rent our lease is done. In our lease, we have a 7 day notice of termination to remedy the breach. We never received any notice what so ever. The notice of termination was sent certified mail by his lawyers, so it would be logical that he would send the 7 day notice through certified mail also.

I don't know NY law but my bet is that LL will have to go through the eviction process and you will be able to pay into court the rent. End of eviction.

The reason we never sent certified was because we always had a good relationship with the LL and no problems ever arose.

Certified only says that a piece of mail made a certain destination on a time and date. It does not say what was in the envelope.

An unscrupulous LL can assert he received a nice envelope...with nothin in it. so what? Let him file for eviction, pay the rent into court, voila!

Or pay in person in cash or certified funds with a friend as a witness to the payment, get a receipt.

[CPO_MK]

Do you normally pay by check? Do you get cancelled checks back (or can you access check images online)? Did you already have a stamp, or did you go to the post office and purchase one? If you purchased a stamp, do you have the receipt with the date/time (doesn't prove when or if anything was mailed but it's still circumstantial evidence in your favor)?

As for the notice, what does the exact text of the notice say? Some (not most but some) notices, whether 3-day, 30-day, or anywhere in between, do not say "Seven Day Notice of Termination" but rather just "Notice of Termination," to use your situation as an example. What you received may in fact be the 7-day notice proscribed by your lease.

Finally, as the person above me wrote I am not familiar with the specifics of NY law, but generally speaking a landlord cannot retaliatorily evict you; in most cases an eviction (for any reason) within 6 months of the action that made the landlord unhappy is looked upon automatically by the courts as a retaliatory action and is unlawful. You exercised your right to continue with the lease as there was no legal reason the landlord could force you NOT to, and so now that he is evicting you (whether or not proper notice has been given) it would appear that it is retaliatory. Throw in the detail that he wanted you out so he could get a higher-paying tenant in your place, and things really become stacked against him in the eyes of the courts.

I would still be interested to see the exact language of your notice however.

[edit: also keep a close eye on your bank statement so see if that rent check ever gets deposited anywhere; if it does, then his "nonpayment of rent" argument falls by the wayside. If it never gets cashed/deposited, then put a stop payment on it after 30 days (you could do this after 14 but since this looks like it may end up as a legal battler I'd give it the full good-faith effort of 30 days) and hold onto those funds so that you can deposit them into an escrow account if necessary to satisfy the court.]