All Forum Posts by: Al D.

Bill is correct, John: GA did change some habitability- and eviction-related laws, effective 20 days ago - of which I was not aware until just now. I posted a reference to the law that was current as of this March 28, but the governor signed HB 404 on April 22. Egg on my face, and I am now happy to admit that I am a (long ago) law school drop-out.

I still have not found a more up to date (free) source of the statute than my original source, and can’t tell whether this version of the Bill I just found is the final version signed into law: https://gov.georgia.gov/document/2024-signed-legislation/hb-404/download

If it is, then it appears that a 3 business day notice “… shall be posted in sealed envelope conspicuously on the door of the property and delivered via any additional method or methods agreed upon in the rental agreement.” But, again, I am not a lawyer, so could - again - be wrong. At least I am certain that the legal statute I initially referred to is no longer valid.

As Nathan noted above, “people… may give bad advice.” My sincere apologies for mine.

Is this California? If so, the law on this is one of the most straight forward ones out there:

CA B&P 7030.5 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC§ionNum=7030.5.)

“Every person licensed pursuant to this chapter shall include his license number in: (a) all construction contracts; (b) subcontracts and calls for bid; and (c) all forms of advertising, as prescribed by the registrar of contractors, used by such a person.”

Only times I’ve been given some excuse on this, the bidder was not a licensed contractor, while claiming to be such. I’d scrutinize this one if he provides any license info eventually - every legitimate contractor I’ve ever dealt with knows the above *requirement* well. No license, likely no insurance, etc.

I own in the area, but use a PM, and cannot recommended an attorney for this.

The first step is not (necessarily) to provide written notice…. Do you want an easy answer or a free one? (Sorry.)

This will get a bit confusing at first:

You should find some answers in this government guide, starting on page 15: https://www.dca.ga.gov/sites/default/files/2-15-21_handbook_final_draft.pdf

There is example language of what your written notice to the tenant should include. The key word being “should.” And note that the number of days in the suggested language is blank.

You will also see that the Guide appears to say that the tenant has 7 days, suggesting that that’s the number of days the landlord is expected to state in the Notice. However, if you take that writing on its face, as written (perhaps intentionally,) you *may* (I’ll explain below) be overdoing it, as that “7 days” part is actually directed to a tenant reading it - nowhere I am aware of, in GA, is it mandated that the Notice has to give the tenant 7 days.

(Understand that I didn’t include the Guide for no reason: Your tenant may read the same Guide and end up delaying you if you should only become aware of it when the tenant uses it to tell you that you did not follow some legal requirement. I want you to be aware that a government source that your tenant may refer to may be confusing. Read on.)

The actual law does not specify any length of time from the time you give Notice before you can take the matter to court. It doesn’t even say whether the Notice needs to be in writing: https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-44-property/ga-code-sect-44-7-50/

However, I do not know whether the local judges may have their own “local rules” (legally or figuratively speaking.) Perhaps they like to see a written 7-day notice (and perhaps with some type of evidence of “service” on the tenant) not work before you take the matter to court; tho, the following document also does not seem to care about the time or the manner of the initial demand (Notice): https://s3.amazonaws.com/cobbcounty.org.if-us-east-1/s3fs-public/2024-03/Proceeding-Against-Tenant-Holding-Over-Eviction-Form.pdf. (I am assuming this would be the court with the jurisdiction over this matter, so this would be the form you’d use at that stage.)

Sorry for the confusion, but I first needed to get that out of the way, before saying this:

From experience, I can say that each time my PM has given a written notice (I don’t actually know for how many days,) the tenant would pay.

If you’d like to use a template instead of making your own notice from the Guide’s suggestion, you can find one here: https://eforms.com/eviction/ga/

If I were doing this myself, I’d start with a 7-day written notice (even tho, as far as I, as a non-lawyer, can tell, I don’t have to give any number of days) and perhaps avoid court altogether. But you are already two months into this, so time may be of the essence for you more than it would be for me. Good luck.

I don’t own anything in Arizona, and just looked up the related laws: https://www.azleg.gov/ars/33/01321.htm.

It sounds like you may be familiar with them, as you did what’s expected by the letter of the law. You are looking for a practical advice now to CYA.

You fear you mean need some evidence of your timely and correct actions, and that’s a reasonable concern: I’d take a photo of the envelope to make sure it shows the address and the post office stamp. I’d then write “No longer at this address” in pen on the front of the envelope, and take another pic of the envelope at that point. I’d then deposit the, still sealed, envelope into a USPS mailbox. (You can take a pic with the door open and the envelope about to be put in/even make a video of it - either of this is an overkill, in my opinion. But why limit yourself at this point?) Be sure to save the pics where you won’t forget.

If you’d still want to go above and beyond this: If you have email or cell number for the tenant, write out what was in the letter and attach the pics.

I’m not a lawyer, but think you should be well covered.

Also, from what I can tell, Florida does allow 10 days after Final Judgement for the defendant to file a Motion for Rehearing. I did not want to touch on whether the emergency motion filed was the right motion for the situation - since the defendant was already out (on her own, as essentially stated/admitted by her attorney in their “emergency” filing.) I don’t actually know about such situations, as I’d think it useless to file a Stay of the Writ of Possession at that time… This is way above my limited knowledge. My POV is only concerned with whether there is apparent merit for the lawsuit against you.

When you get to the bottom of this - and I hope soon - please share.

@Marc (it took me a while to research and write the following - before I saw your reply. As I am now in a hurry, I’ll post mine as originally written. But good to know that I was on the right track, and hopefully, you can still see my point that they may have no claim and what, I think, you can do.)

Based on public records, I’m guessing that it’s a 2023 eviction case, in which you represented yourself. From what I can tell, you were able to obtain default judgment, as the tenant did not timely respond to the court notice, and subsequently you obtained final judgment for possession (signed by a judge and entered into official record by the clerk.)

As far as I would think, the legal matter was closed/adjudicated at that time - any lawyer potentially about to take the case to represent the tenant/defendant should have seen it that way in the system. “Too late for this court.”

However, just days later, a law firm began to represent the tenant, first filing NOTICE OF UPDATING MAILING ADDRESS FOR DEFENDANTS AND OBJECTION TO ANY CLAIM ON SECURITY DEPOSIT, and a Notice that they now represented the defendant. In both notices, they alleged that they served you with the respective document at (the address you provided the court in the Summons.)

While the Clerk clearly accepted these documents, I see no record of any proof of service/certificate of mailing entered into the case for them.

The only other thing - the last item - I see is, another week later, DEFENDANT’S EMERGENCY MOTION TO VACATE THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND WRIT OF POSSESSION, which, to me, reads like a poor attempt to show their client that they did something (from what I can tell, the allegation that the tenant vacated a week before you obtained the final judgement should be the grounds to justify vacating the judgment now.)

The Court said nothing to either of these 3 filings by the law firm - according to the public records I see.

Seems like the horse was out of the barn when that LLC (the law firm) entered the case, but, again, I am not a lawyer. Also, I see no record of a pending lawsuit against you in the county or in trellis.

So, I see your concern, and appreciate the warning to the rest of us (tho, I’d be using a lawyer for my own Florida evictions.) Such situations really irk me, which is why I decided to look into this further (and assume I have the right case.)

My feedback remains to speak to an attorney. (However, now that I see that you have court experience, also consider this: The employee of the law firm who filed the lawsuit(?) against you may not be aware that they have no claim. It’s not an excuse, but I’d point that out to them myself first, and be sure to add “in good faith.” I am also basing this consideration on the poor GMaps reviews, by clients, from which it appears that there is a mess at this law firm. From the little I know of law, you are not prevented from speaking with this plaintiff(?) directly, especially if there really is no lawsuit by them against you.)

@Marc, are you saying that if you look at the up to date eviction case records, there is that change of address form filed and with a dated (expectedly, with a date prior to when your letter was due) stamp from the court clerk on it? Or is the opposing attorney simply telling you that they sent it to you? If it’s not in the case records, then it’s a BS claim against you.

If it is in the case record, the form should say to whom it was addressed. If you were represented by an attorney in the eviction, it should have been addressed to your attorney’s office. Did they receive anything about the change of address? Ask them. Perhaps they overlooked it - and I hope won’t try to cover for it (which, if the record shows the form went to them, they should come clean to you about.)

I can’t imagine that this is different from CA, where each party is supposed to serve the other with documents they file with the court - they can’t just say “Surpruse!” later. So, if the form is in the case file, on whom was it served? If on your attorney, and they forgot to tell you, they should now defend you in the opposing law firm’s claim - for free, as it stems from their direct negligence. (They may not offer to do so, so demand.)

Look at the lawsuit against you, it should (perhaps very vaguely) state the specific claim(s) against you. Perhaps the plaintiff stated how they (allegedly) served you/your attorney with the change of address form. If it’s not stated - and in my opinion, this is a material fact - my intuition says that they hope you’ll never challenge them, especially in court. (Remember the claims a certain former federal prosecutor and mayor of a major city would make outside of the courtroom…. only to not be able to make any such claims once in front of the judge?) So, please challenge them.

The bottom line - and I believe this was pointed out to you above - the burden of proof is on the party who filed the case against you. That means, for each and every claim they make (and they can make all kinds of claims in the initial filing,) there’d better be proof, or at least some evidence, in *their* possession.

I am not an attorney, but have successfully defended myself (without a lawyer) in legal proceedings against so-called-ones. I was once even lied to about a material matter when they (over 1,000-lawyers, nationwide firm) tried to collect before we’d go to court - and so advised that lawyer and her supervisor, once that became clear. They were clearly hoping that I’d fold, denied having lied, but (surprise!) offered to drop the case the next day... It was a shakedown.

At least try to speak with an attorney before you finalize your decision.

I see that you are in Oakland, and presume so is the property. It sounds expensive, but perhaps the property falls under certain requirements, including interconnecting the detectors.

Maybe this can shine some light:

https://wbcapp.oaklandnet.com/cs/groups/public/documents/translateddocument/b3dk/mdaz/~edisp/dowd003911.pdf

I would 100% go with Nathan’s “Two Steps to Our Contract Expected Adherence to Certain Performance Standards on Your Part as a Licensed Professional, Too, Solution” he outlined.

(And please always attempt to insert a clause about "firing for cause" exception to any future fees when entering into a new PM relationship. I have not had one who has refused to add this yet. While we are at it: I also ask to remove anything about the 6% broker fee if selling to the tenant in the future, no matter how unlikely it may seem or what NAR lawsuits may bring in the future - if you don't agree with something, ask to change/remove it, in good faith, before entering into the business relationship. Surprisingly, I got one as recently as this May that still had this "6%" as standard language. I know the new rules are not official until next month, but the initially proposed contract term would go into 2026…)

(Side note) Warning for the OP: I would not share certain specifics about this investment loss and your net worth, and perhaps other specific info you may feel inclined to also share here at that point. (Tho, you’ve had time to make that reply by now, and have not, so you may not need this warning. But my hope is that it may serve others.)

This is a public forum, in which you have been using presumably your real name, and certain bad actors may be paying attention. Your situation is still unfolding.

While this recent official warning is not about your specific type of investment, any investment loss victim with potential for a legal action should consider it: https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2024/PSA240624.

Thank you for trying to warn others with your post. And separate thanks to other posters who have attempted to provide greater context and education about this type of investment.