Filing Eviction Unlawful Detainer Complaint Thru Attorney
Investor · Fresno, CA · Member since 2016 · 11 posts · 1 vote
I recently served a tenant a Notice to Pay or Quit. The tenant hasn't paid for 3.5 months and his lease expired on March 1, 2016. I've heard all of his stories ("I'm sick.", "I promise to be out on the 15th, 18th, 24th...." so-on so-on, tell me a story). I have now contacted an Attorney to file the UD through the courts. The attorney says she would charge $750 to file, pus or $250/hr should it go to court; or, $1000 flat fee from day 1 to tenant leaving voluntary or forcibly within a given timeframe. First, do these sound like good prices and second, is it difficult to do yourself? I am in California and so is my tenant, if it wasn't already obvious. Thank you.
If you do a search under "California tenant eviction process" it seems fairly simple and in your case straight forward.
Do us all a favour and do not bribe a bad tenant to leave. Take him to court and have the eviction officially on his record for all landlords to see when screening him in the future. He is a criminal do not reward him for his behaviour.
"The attorney says she would charge $750 to file, pus or $250/hr should it go to court;"
Go for it. 99% of the UD actions are uncontested and no court appearance ever occurs.
Yeah, you CAN do it yourself, but screw-up and you just delay the process and get more damages as a result.
The fees are also an expense, as well as the Bad Debt.
If you do a search under "California tenant eviction process" it seems fairly simple and in your case straight forward.
Do us all a favour and do not bribe a bad tenant to leave. Take him to court and have the eviction officially on his record for all landlords to see when screening him in the future. He is a criminal do not reward him for his behaviour.
Criminal is emotional loaded term: Unlawful Detainer actions (aka evictions) is a misdemeanor and filed in Public Records to which @Thomas S. is alluding and which can be found when screening your next applicant.
Correct. I however believe, regardless of how the criminal system defines them, that they should be labeled by what they really are. They are stealing money from a business and should be referred to as criminals.
I like the idea of the old British system of paupers prisons.
It sounds then like the $1,000 flat fee for applications and every procedure following might be the route to go. A little web-search I did quick sounds like he could be living free anywhere from 3 weeks - 6 months depending on how he "fights" it. I've been courteous and have told him that it will hurt his credit and rental credibility if it gets down to the Sherrifs locking him out and removing his items. I'm expecting the worst from him: sabotaging the place even if he decides to move on his own will, so I won't offer him $500 to move. The attorney is more deserving of any monies in this case.
You should serve notice to inspect and take good clear pictures of every square inch of the unit. If he does wilfully damage the property you could then have him charged with vandalism. While taking the pictures I would suggest to him that it is your intent to take all legal action necessary.
A well prepared landlord can avoid a lot of unnecessary difficulties and damages. It sounds like you are dealing with a professional tenant and I am surprised you did not find evictions when screening.
Shop that around, IMO that's a little steep. See if you can find an attorney that does them all day long, then you could be talking $200, plus court fees. Frankly it's not that hard to file a summons. Most property managers will do it as part of their service, in my experience, so it's really not that complicated. It's been a while, but I've done them myself as well, $57 and a few hours of my day is not bad, but if your not comfortable with legal terms and court rooms, pickup an attorney.
Hi Manny: I also live in California and I've done unlawful detainers on my own. I would advise that before paying a lawyer a lot of money, you go online and read all there is about the process; all the forms and instructions are there so I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem figuring it out. If you want, you can tell your tenant that you are going to proceed with legal action; that probably won't get them out but it's always worth a try. Just on principal, I would never pay a tenant to get them out, but then I'm just not in favor of rewarding bad behavior and this only sets up the precedent for them to repeat their misdeeds in the future. Explain to them that a judgment against them will show up not only in their court records but also on their credit report, where it will stay for 7 years. They probably won't care, but like I said, it's worth a try. As for the lawyer's projected charge for a court appearance, it generally doesn't come to that as the tenants are usually gone before the sheriff arrives. You don't need to worry about representing yourself in court; they don't have any excuse for neglecting to pay their rent. Even if they've lost their jobs, you are not expected to turn into the Welfare Department. Judges can see the truth in most cases; they see it every day... Try to find out why they stopped paying rent; get as much in writing as you can (email has saved the day for me more than once); keep a timeline of everything, every phone call, every conversation; file your paperwork accurately and have it all with you, accompanied with a recap of events. Do all this and you should ensure success. Best of all, it will solidify your confidence in dealing with wayward tenants in the future. Best wishes to you in this and in all your endeavors!
Thank you very much Maggie. Based on a couple of responses, and if it normally does not go to trial, perhaps I can do the legwork myself. If anything else, I can log it in as experience. Normally, a person who hears about the Sheriff will try to avoid it, but it hasn't fazed him one bit. @Hugo
@Hugo Camberos, in my experience, the best tenants have been Section 8 renters. I'm about 75% occupied now with Section 8. They perform 6-month Inspections on your property to assure you have the basic working units/alarms/CO sensors, etc. Since most of my units are MDUs, which I do not intend to live in, I won't care too much if a renter does a small amount of damage so long as it's under their deposit I suppose. But, the Section 8 inspections are good indicators of how the renter is taking care of your unit. Renters are a plenty here. The last unit I was having a contractor replace the carpet with laminate flooring, and I had 3-4 renters fighting over it just by word of mouth. I didn't need to advertise. A good key when choosing where to purchase is school district. The renters tend to favor locations where the school district is fit for their children. (That is probably true for almost anywhere I guess?)
It is very hard to suck up our pride. Me included. But suck it up. Pay him to get out. You lost. Win some Lose some. Question is how much more time and money are you going to loose. Who deserves the money, who is right or wrong, all irrelevant. Objective should be to minimize the loss and get back property under your control as quick as possible. Really should have already filed a eviction or done the cash for keys. You have been way over fair. Tell them $300 and keep going up in price till they agree or you hit your $1000. Of course all garbage and stuff must be removed from home. Do not pay till out. Make time frame short. Only if this does not work then go file for eviction. Although I do post a pay or Quit notice after a few days late of rent. Mainly to scare them and show them, I mean Business. Unless Tenant has contacted me and set something up with me.
They are less likely to destroy the place on the day of moving out. Damage already done, well is already done. lol Take deposit. If way over deposit, you have the option to take them to court.
Of course after they have already moved out and a new tenant is paying you rent.
I would bet you would get your place back faster and have rented out before you would finish going to court. Also worth some $.
My answer is try Cash for Keys first. Works almost every time.
You Can Do IT! Manny you got this one!
Art
I prefer to hire attorney to begin with it. I posted the 3 days notice myself. The tenant did not pay. I turned my case to my attorney. My ttorney did not like the wordings that I put on the notice. So he had to re-post it. Some delay there.
California is a tenant friendly state. If there is any mis-step, you will go back from the beginning. There was a case that the judge put aside due to none proper notice serving.
You have been three month behind for filing. I would not play around with it myself. It is just my opinion.
Hi Manny -
I did a UD here in Fresno a little over a 1 year ago and it was much easier than I thought. The court will tell you all the paperwork you need to file and how long the time frame is going to be. When we we got to court the judge made us talk with the arbitrators until we came to a decision - then the judge simply enforced it. Because we had all of our paperwork , and logged everything she paid and didn't pay - it went over pretty easy. It never occurred to me to bring a lawyer into it because from day 1 we started the court proceedings by going down to the city after giving her her the 3 day pay or quit .
It was my first court enforced eviction. The most stressful part of it all was wondering if the judge would side with us and wondering how long it would take to get her out after the judgement - I don't remember anymore, but I think after we saw the judge it was about 3 weeks before we got her to go.
I guess my point is - the information is there for you to do it on your own - the city clerks will tell you what you need to file and the time frame - and yes $1000 seems a little steep to have someone do those things for you and in the end they have you sit with arbitrators anyway - at least that was my experience - hope that helps some
I would never give legal advice though - so maybe the takeaway is to shop around a little a see if someone else will do it for less because that really does seem like a lot of money for something that took so little time and was about as simple as filing paperwork.
Hi Jay -
Your suggestion is a gold mine. I just researched it at and it does not look too complicated at all. http://www.fresno.courts.ca.gov/civil/unlawful_det...
It's going on 4 months he has missed rent, so more than likely the judge will side and the Sheriff's 5-day notice to vacate would scare anyone probably. If I fail at this, I can at least mark it up to experience. But, should I succeed, I know the procedure for future evictions. Per guidelines, I have kept all documents (rental agreements, notices served, down to the picture of another person serving the notice to quit or pay personally to him, and Post Office receipts of mail receival). I'll be at 1130 O Street this Monday to start the process. Thank you for advice. Saving 1K for filing paperwork is a win.
I do many UD's here in Fresno for my real estate investor clients (and my own). I charge a flat fee of $500 to do it plus the client pays the filing fees. This $500 does not cover if the tenant contests it and a trial is held (which is very very rare). In that situation, I charge $195 an hour on top of the $500.
There are many pitfalls that you should be wary of when doing this process on your own and I do not suggest it. You should also keep in mind that if an LLC or S-corp is the title owner of the property you will not be able to appear in court on behalf of the business unless you are an attorney. I cannot tell you how many sole members of an LLC that own an investment property have been kicked out of court for attempting to represent a business entity without being a lawyer. Technically that is attempting to practice law without a license and judges will not be happy when you attempt to do it.
There are also many pitfalls if the tenant is living in a home that you purchased at a foreclosure auction. In that situation, there are entirely different steps that must be taken to get the tenant out.
@Manny - that was my attitude about in terms of getting the experience - I was full of anticipation the first time going about it - but afterwords I felt confident that I could do it again if needed ( thankfully I have not) so I am no expert on evictions - I just know that if it is a simple eviction for non payment of rent -I would feel comfortable going back to court on my own. If it was a more complicated situation, I would probably seek out the advice of an attorney on how to proceed.
@Justin - I agree that many things can go wrong if not addressed properly, which is why I would never give someone else legal advice on this matter - I would however be interested in connecting with you outside of Bigger Pockets to see if you would be interested in getting in front of my investment group to talk about the subject - I'm sure you have a lot of insight that we could benefit from and it couldn't hurt to meet a new group of investors / potential clients.
@Jay - I plan on attending some of your meetings in the coming weeks. I would be interested in connecting before hand. Feel free to PM me and we can exchange contact info.
UPDATE: The Unlawful Detainer (UD) application process was not difficult at all, the package comes with a bulleted step-by-step instruction and they offer live instruction on Tuesdays (at the Courthouse) for landlords if needed. After I had served his a 3-Day Notice to Pay or Quit, the tenant took every opportunity to "squat" and live rent free. Dead promises of "I'll be out by the 3rd, out by the 15th, guaranteed out by the 28th, and I will have all your rents,", etc., etc. all expired. I'm sure some of you more-experienced owners have heard all the stories.
Towards the end, and DURING the UD application process - I mentioned to him that a judgement against him will look horrible on his credit plus inability to get future rentals, and the Sheriff's Department locking the apartment and taking over possession of his items did enough to scare him, and he moved out OVERNIGHT. I filled out the UD forms but never turned them in. $0 cost. The missed month's rents I will have to investigate how to write them off as losses.
This experience has taught me this past year that it takes about a good 3.5 - 4 months to get somebody out and transition to a new renter. I will know next time, that after 5 days of missed rent, START your paperwork immediately, do not go on the renters' promises.
Thank all of you guys for the input.