Well Xavier, You have just meet your professional Tenant.... Did you do a back ground check on the tenant before they moved in? Did you get rental history? This are the big things that owners miss when they go to rent their own property. What I mean as a "Professional Tenant" is that they know the buzz words to say. If they do get to court you not knowing how the VRLTA works, get shafted because the tenant says that you are not doing repairs, and the Judges don't even know the laws either. It is very irritating when I or one of my staff members have to request that the tenant pay rent in escrow in court before she may obtain a continuance for a trial, but the judges don't know that that is required... Again most of my owners come to me when they are in your situation because they just don't know what they can and what they can't do.
1st you need to know if your lease is set up as common law or under the VRLTA (Virginia Residential Landlord Tenant ACT). If you lease doesn't explicitly say that it is under the VRLTA, since the property is in the Commonwealth of Virginia it would fall under Common law. You will need to google common law requirements. I personally can only speak to the VRLTA because as a Licensed Broker, I can only operate under VLRTA.
VRLTA provides tenants and landlords with rights and remedies, but it is never the right of a tenant to withhold rent if they believe that their properties are not being repaired. They must file a Tenant Assertion, which requires them to place their rent in Escrow with the court in the city/county where the property is located. Most tenants don't know this.
In court the judge is not supposed to entertain any ideas that the tenant is holding the rent because of repairs, but depending on which city (Portsmouth is the best at this, Virginia Beach not so good, Norfolk more than often sides with the tenant), however when it comes to proving that the tenant holding the rent has nothing to do with why they are not paying their rent all comes down to documentation. If you can prove that when the tenant reports a maintenance item to you you send a vendor than you are fine... Most home owners can't really prove this because there is no instruction in the lease on how a tenant is supposed to report maintenance, and no tracking mechanism to prove it.
As a property manager we have an online property management software that tracks everything including every maintenance request from the time a tenant puts in the maintenance when the vendor is notified, when the vendor fixes the and when the invoice comes in.
Since you don't have a specific way of being notified, she could say I left you a message, I texted you, I emailed you, but you have no specific no way to dispute her trying to put doubt in the judges mind that you the landlord did everything in your power to get the issues fixed.
Also being you are the owner, I can speak for personal experience, you are personally invested in this court case, and your emotions will show through and as soon as a judge sees that you have no chance of winning the case. I always send one of my staff members for one of my properties because they have no personal interest in the property.
You have 2 choices you can hire an attorney, to handle this court case for you, or you can hire a property manager to manage your so that you don't have to put your self in the position of getting emotionally involved in the situation and making a bad decisions. A lot of the times all tenants just need to be scared in to following the rules, and when you hire a property manager they can no longer get away with the crap because they know we know what we are doing and will go to court and evict them without hesitation...
Again if you have any further questions you may email me.
Hope this helps.
