BiggerPockets

Need your experience to guide my decision, please.

The short: two tenants, man and woman, several complaints including police reports, damage to apartment, non-payment of rent. I went through the eviction process through the district magistrate, got a judgment for $3990 for damages and unpaid rent. One tenant filed an appeal giving me 20 days to file a complaint, which would take this to civil court. Bottom line is that I'm trying to balance my hurt pride with my business decisions. My lawyer is erring on the side of just dropping the whole thing because in the end my legal costs if it made it to arbitration hearing would be $1500 bucks or so.

Do you guys have any experience or advice in this matter. thanks so much.

It sounds like a personal preference. I have gone both ways. Tenants like that will never learn.

Brian Haskins

Must you be represented by an attorney? Or can you appear by yourself?

If you won before the Magistrate chances are you will win on appeal.

My feeling is these tenants CANNOT afford an attorney to represent them in a further civil procedure, but are trying a bluff.

Were it me I would spend a little more money and address the appeal in as intimidating a manner as legally possible (indicating you intend to depose every one remotely involved is an example). You can always drop this later.

This happened to me once where I sued a tenant whose parents hired an attorney. Using facts and evidence I won the case, whereupon the attorney literally yelled that he was appealing to district court.

But apparently not for free, as a few hours later he called on behalf of the defendant to settle and paid me full damages plus court costs.

Was it a colossal waste of my time and resources? Yes. Have I always prevailed in court? No.

Good luck and keep us posted.

What part of PA are you in? Might be able to refer you to good attorneys specializing in R.E. and evictions.

To appeal, usually the Tenant will be required to post with the court a dollar amount of the judgment that was rendered in your favor; this is to discourage tenants from taking advantage of the system to drag things out for the landlord - if they lose, you'll get that money from the court.

At least that was m understanding based on a training visit at my REIA from an attorney.

Well, after meeting with my lawyer, and going over the law, i found out that I was misinformed by the district justice when giving my notice to quit. i only gave them ten days to quit, and the law states 15, so, that is a loophole in this case. I also disposed of their belongings because my lease has an abandonment clause. So, after the magistrate judgment was made, i began to clean out his belongings with a feeling of comfort secondary to having that clause in there. Well, my lawyer said that it's possibly unconstitutional, and this may trigger a point of contention in court. The bottom line here is that the risk reward was not worth it, although my pride almost won out and said let's fight this guy.....but, a smart business decision says to not do so....a lesson learned and chalk one up for the bad guys....karma will get him in the end.