Eviction After Mail Theft

[SChinFChin]

One more question: The Landlord refuses to accept July's rent, until this other issue (March) is settled. What is the meaning of this, and am I then liable for late payments for July?
I have also been told that once it goes to court, that stays on my record and I can't rent anywhere again...

In most jurisdictions, tenants can pay "rent into escrow", but it is usually better to have an attorney handle, you pay rent to the attorney, he places it into an escrow account, notifies the landlord that he has the rent. This is one way to handle it to show you are not shirking the rent.

If you prefer not to have an attorney involved, the other way is just to hold on to the rent check, and when you go to the court hearing, you tell the judge that the July rent was refused by the landlord. I don't see the point in this, since you cannot be put out onto the street without a court hearing anyway, so all you do is take this returned rent check along with any other correspondence with it to court.

[LawResearcherMissy]

I have also been told that once it goes to court, that stays on my record and I can't rent anywhere again...

Yes, it stays on your credit report for seven years, and in the court's records forever.

No, it does not mean that you'll never be able to rent anywhere else again. it just means that you'll be thoroughly grilled about the eviction, because people who've been evicted are seen as high risk tenants.

Should the eviction proceed and you seek out other housing, be up front about the eviction and the reasons for it when you apply for a place. You're more likely to find a landlord who will pay attention and work with you if you do it that way, than if you just remain silent and wait for them to ask about it.

[SChinFChin]

I have also been told that once it goes to court, that stays on my record and I can't rent anywhere again...

I would suggest in your situation to keep an accurate record of your rent payments (rent receipts, money order receipts, cancelled checks etc.), so if you were to go rent another apartment, you can demonstrate you have consistently paid on time. Paying rent into escrow is also part of this.

If there are correspondence going back and forth previously about the stolen payments, keep copies of it as well, and put them into this "folder", so if you were to tell other people in the future a story about the theft, the landlord wanting you to pay the rent yet again, you have the paperwork showing all of this.

In other words, "document, document, document".

I have tenants showing up looking at my apartments with such paperwork neatly arranged in a folder, and with prior years W-2's or 1099's, latest check stubs etc. To me, it demonstrates responsibility, and if you show up well dressed, respectful, you should have no problems.

Years ago, I had a small problem with my bank. I was automatically saving money by having a sum of money taken from my checking to go into savings. Some time later, I went down to the bank to cancel this, also closed that savings account. Unbeknownst to me, they continue to withdraw the funds, credit the now closed savings account, and in the meantime, overdrawing my checking account, and racking up some bank fees.

I wrote to the bank, detailing the problem, and demanding they cancel the charges. They did, writing back a letter of apology, explaining the bank charges are now "written off".

What I didn't know the issue of the overdrawn account, a little over $100 in fees went onto the credit reports characterized as "a writeoff". I only learned of it many years later when I went to buy a home, get credit cards, and I was asked to explain the overdrawn account, and the "writeoff".

Fortunately, I had the foresight to write to the bank a letter explaining the original deal to automatically transfer funds, the errors they made cancelling the transfer. I included in the letter the fact I requested the termination of this, and then complaining the transfers continued resulting in the overdrawn account, and charges.

Because I wrote them, and the bank wrote back apologizing for the error, and finally saying, " please accept our apologies, and we have today written off the charges", I have an exact record of what happened.

I kept my letters, and the bank's response, for years not thinking much of it, and being a pack rat, still having it now somewhere, though it now more than 35 years. In fact, the question of the writeoff was raised on numerous occasions, and from time to time, some credit grantors had called or wrote me saying they were impressed with the records I kept, noting that "writeoff" is normally a reg flag, but a letter saying "please accept our apologies, and the unwarranted charges would be written off" puts the issue in a different light.

What I am getting to is you have to establish an "audit trail". You start so by writing a letter to the landlord explaining the issue from the beginning, that the rent payment made back in March was stolen, and so has the rent check of others, citing some names.

You go on to say that you have requested they file an insurance claim, but they refused, and it is unlikely that their accusations of you having friends steal it, and cash it to be ludicrous as it happened to many others.

The reason why you are writing this letter, is NOT for your landlord's benefit, they know all of this already, but for the benefit of others, years later, where they'll come back to you, and say "hey, I see this eviction on file".

I've been to court suing debtors, and judges like to see correspondence. There was one case I recall that there was absolutely nothing between myself and the person I'm suing that that judge looked at us in disbelief, saying, "in the future, after every call, write a letter".

Since you've been sent an eviction notice, you would include in this letter the fact that "you would welcome a court hearing on the eviction matter, and you do not believe you have to make 2 rent payments for the month of Mar".

Conclude by saying "you are more than happy to work with them with the theft investigation, but having them insist on evicting makes this all the more difficult", blah blah. This is solely for the consumption of future landlords who might think you are a troublemaker.

All of this in your files is for the consumption of others when you go rent somewhere else later, and you want to show you are more than willing to work with your landlord. Keep in mind other large apartment complexes might look at you as a troublemaker, though small property owners like myself would not.

Now, your current landlord can retaliate, and decide not to renew your lease, and unless you are under rent control, raised the rent tremendously to force you to move, so this would be more of an issue and concern from my point of view.