I’m writing this because I found only one actual telling of someone’s unlawful detainer story online. It was told from the tenant’s point of view and didn’t include the outcome. Someone has to spill it and let others know what it’s like.
Background:
We’ve owned our 8 unit apartment building for 1 1/2 years. We were warned when we bought the building that one of the tenants was a problem and that the seller had considered evicting her. Did we listen? No.
We are not slumlords. We renovated many of the units, plus the landscaping and more. This was a lot of work and we thought it would be helpful to have one of the tenants keep the grounds and stairwells clean do other small tasks. The alternative would have been numerous daily trips to the building for my husband. And the tenant we were warned about seemed to be ok.
At first we thought we needed her
We gave her a year lease and a separate maintenance contract. In the first few hectic months we just accepted her maintenance invoices as is, but then asked that she provide detailed invoices listing the work done, the amount of time and the dollar amount instead of her lump sum statements.
Things quickly turn sour
After only a few months of this arrangement, things were not going well. Aside from the fact that she called every single night and could NOT STOP TALKING, we never did receive acceptable invoices. When it was time to exchange rent and maintenance checks, my husband would have to escort her to the bank, give her a maintenance check, let her deposit it, then immediately write her rent check. This is hardly a happy way to receive rent, but if we allowed her to turn her back for a few minutes, we were certain the maintenance payment would disappear and there would be no rent payment.
I doubt a single month went by that we didn’t discuss evicting her. But my husband had heard horror stories about evictions and feared the worst.
When it became clear that the tenant was unable to provide acceptable monthly invoices, we asked for weekly invoices. That didn’t help. She was just plain not capable of producing them. We could do it by combing through emails and texts, but it’s not our job.
The plan:
The plan had been to give her notice so that she would be out when her lease expired in May. But around that time, another tenant was a worse problem and my husband didn’t want to evict two tenants at once.
Note: Do not be stupid like we were. We would evict all eight of them at once now, if need be.
We lose our patience:
We continued tolerating this tenant until the end of summer when she gave us an invoice that was clearly the exact same invoice she’d shoved in our direction before.
We probably still wouldn’t be evicting her if I hadn’t pushed so hard to start the process. Several rental owning coworkers have done their own evictions with much success and made it seem like a very doable process. It actually is, if the situation is straightforward - just non-payment of rent.
From what I gather, the landlord almost always wins for non-payment of rent evictions. From the trials we watched in preparation for our own, even when the tenant claims uninhabitability, the landlord wins.
We begin:
We took the 3 day notice to the Unlawful Detainer (UD) advice office to make sure everything was fine, plus had them look over the forms we would submit to the court for the next step of the process. That meeting was wonderful and very encouraging.
Then we drove to her apt and put the notice on her door. OMG, I was so happy! Progress!
The next step
We waited the required number of days, plus one just to be sure, then filed our paperwork with the court and waited for stamped copies to be returned via email. Several days later we received them. The court is horribly backlogged. In this economy evictions are rampant.
You are served!
We enlisted another tenant to serve her. That is probably the only reasonable way to do it. She’s in a unit that is behind a locked gate. It would be nearly impossible for someone who didn’t live there to get to her.
A murder threat is issued
After a few days, she was served! Her response was to threaten to murder the process server and his entire family. She’s such a winner!
A mistake was made (one of MANY)
Sadly, we learned that when you serve a tenant, you should give them more than the two page summons sheet. They are to be served with every single page that you turned into the court. How was I to know? The idiotic video on the Sacramento County Court website shows the tenant being served with a document that is clearly only two pages. Plus, at the UD advice office, as they went over our forms, they put their hand on the summons and said “This is what you’ll serve her.” That statement matched the video - a two page document. No where on the court website does it say what you are actually supposed to serve the tenant. I failed the mind reading requirement for proper tenant serving.
When we asked the process serving tenant if he would serve her again, this time with the correct documents, he refused. Who could blame him? Who wants Ms Looney Tunes coming after them? Fortunately the next day he changed his mind. This is really good since the professional process server we contacted never replied to us. Losers.
He was able to serve her quite quickly the second time and with no threats on his life. But, because I am completely incapable of properly collecting documents to serve someone, we didn’t include the lease. We’ve given her copies of it SO many times already. Geesh.
While 86% of tenants don’t respond, ours filed an “answer” in which she objected to the amount we said she owed. We had subtracted an estimated amount to acknowledge that she did actually do some maintenance work in an attempt to not be assholes. She thought that in light of her inflated invoices that we owed her money.
Request for a jury trial
Later we received a copy of her request for a jury trial. While we had been talking about having a lawyer take over for us, this was what pushed us to actually do that. We hired THE BEST eviction attorney in the whole county. Maybe in the entire world.
But it turns out that the jury trial document was only sent to us. I believe it was sent solely to scare us.
The fake lawyer
The next scare attempt happened when the tenant called my husband, started to talk, then someone took the phone from her and said “This is Tenant X’s attorney. She’s not allowed to talk to you.” Our real attorney saw through this ruse. Who makes phone calls when you’re paying $200-300/hour for a lawyer. Certainly not someone who can’t even afford rent.
The real lawyer
Two days before the trial we heard from a real attorney with strongly worded email outlining the reasons were were sure to lose and asking that we give the tenant what she’s asking for. The upside of this frightening email is that we at least had an idea of what her defense would be.
THE TRIAL - DAY ONE
Usually, UD trials take 10-15 minutes. Ours lasted a ridiculous 4 1/2 hours over two days.
We arrived early but didn’t have a significant conversation with our attorney before the trial started although we did have a chance to look over the motion in limine to exclude the maintenance contract from evidence. It was beautiful.
Initially, everyone was asked to step into the hall and attempt to settle. Our attorney signaled for us to stay where we were. He left with the tenant’s attorney. Seconds later the tenant rushed out after them.
It was a full half hour before our attorney came back in to talk to us. He told us that the other attorney, an older semi-retired general practice attorney, was not as experienced in UD cases and was unable to cite law code when our attorney questioned him. The tenant was shaking during the negotiations.
Back in the courtroom, our attorney pleaded our case and presented his motion. It was wonderful to hear his masterful arguments.
The tenant’s argument: We overstated the amount of rent due because we miscalculated the undisputed amount of maintenance payment owed to the tenant. The law is clear that the 3 day notice must not overstate the amount of rent owed.
Our argument: We could have asked for the full amount of rent due and not subtracted anything for maintenance work. Since we did not ask for more than the full amount of rent, we’re in compliance with the law.
My husband was called as the first witness. I can’t remember what our attorney asked him. The tenant’s attorney grilled him about how exactly the lease and maintenance agreement were signed. He tried to establish that they were signed at the same time and were therefore one document. He repeatedly asked what date each document was signed. Then he tried to argue that the maintenance agreement was signed first so the lease was an attachment to the maintenance agreement.
I so wanted to hurl throwing stars at him. I felt he was badgering my husband. He has the irritating habit of asking the same damn question sixteen times. It was like having Rainman at the trial, but a very slow moving Rainman. Even the judge was a irritated by him and told him he was arguing against the point he was trying to make. Later, my husband said he didn’t feel badgered at all.
Thankfully for us the lease ends by saying the entire lease is contained in the one document and there are no attachments. Lifesaving verbiage.
The judge ruled that the four corners of the lease do not mention the maintenance agreement and that the maintenance agreement is excluded from evidence. Yeah for that early victory. Hail our attorney!
The most entertaining argument the tenant’s attorney tried to make was that our attorney spent too much time preparing for the trial, which would make his client have to pay too much if they lost. The judge stopped him immediately. The losing side cannot pay more than $425 of the other side’s attorney fees no matter what.
The judge was forced to schedule the trial to continue the next day when 5:00 came around and it was clear that the tenant’s attorney couldn’t finish quickly. He can’t seem to argue anything quickly. That means that the tenant’s attorney would need to drive the 2 hours to his home and make another 4 hour round trip the next day.
At the end of the first day I thought we had a 90% chance of winning. My husband put our chances at 70%.
THE TRIAL - DAY TWO
About thirty or so people waiting for ‘GC’ trials, whatever that is, were pushed aside to make way for our trial. A few of them waited in the courtroom, hoping that our trial would finish quickly.
Before the trial started again, our attorney advised us on how to be a good witness. These comments were directed at my husband. I only half listened.
When the trial started the tenant’s attorney called his first witness — me! I was blindsided by this and not the least bit happy. He started by grilling me on exactly how I served the 3 day notice. I know that nail and mail is the standard way, but he was making me question whether I did it right. What time did you put the notice on her door? When did you knock? When did you knock a second time? Did you make a second attempt to personally deliver it? I think he was thinking of the summons, which should be delivered personally if at all possible. After awhile, our attorney stated that my handling of the 3 day notice was ok. He also made the point that the new line of arguing was the result of having another night to think things over and plan new strategies. He should have filed a motion to quash if the 3 day notice were truly not served correctly rather than bring it up in court on the second day.
Then he grilled me on the spreadsheet we included with the complaint that showed how we calculated our estimate of rent due. But I didn’t prepare the spreadsheet. I felt I was made to look stupid for not knowing the answers to his questions. It felt to me like I should know. Several times I told him to ask my husband. The judge admonished me that I was on the witness stand and I needed to just say what I knew.
He also told me to speak up. No one could hear me.
He asked me multiple times how many months listed one amount and how many listed a different amount on the spreadsheet. At least three time he asked me how many months have 28 days. I think I said something that triggered him to enter the spreadsheet into evidence, which is unfortunate.
He also asked to see the separate spreadsheet of calculations our attorney prepared. He reached for it and our attorney placed both his hands over it and said “No. I don’t plan to enter this into evidence.”
After I was finally allowed to leave the witness stand, there was a break and I told my attorney that I thought I was called because he knew I’d be the weaker witness. My son thought he called me because I was the one who put the 3 day notice on the tenant’s door. My husband said I would not have been hired for any job where that was my interview. This is my second time as a witness. The other time was SO much easier.
After the break, the tenant’s attorney called the tenant as a witness. Her testimony was to make the point that she thought the lease and maintenance agreement were one document. That doesn’t make it true however. She was at least as nervous as I was. She was questioned about her sources of income, which she didn’t want to reveal.
During a break after this, the attorneys were talking and my ears perked up only when I heard my attorney say “I’m not going to counter my own offer. It’s up to you to make a counter offer.” OMG! The tenant’s attorney was trying to settle right before closing arguments! He then asked the tenant if she could move out by a certain date that was more than a month away. She replied by saying “I can’t move out! I can’t move until I get $2000!” At this point the judge returned. The tenant’s attorney had written out his closing arguments. I don’t believe our attorney made a closing statement.
I was so ready for the verdict, but to my great disappointment, the judge said he would decide and mail the decision. What a gigantic letdown.
It’s nearly over
Our attorney was optimistic at this point. He told us of the possible next steps. As we walked out, he asked “How do you think you would have done if I weren’t there?” I replied that we would have lost for certain. My husband told me later that the tenant’s attorney would have made us look as bad as our attorney made the tenant’s attorney look.
Waiting
Eight days later I still had heard nothing. Not wanting to bother our attorney, I called the court and learned that WE WON! And I learned that our attorney knew this for two days already. So why not share the joy? It’s not obvious that we would want to know right away?
I emailed my attorney and said we wanted to proceed with obtaining a writ of possession we could take to the sheriff. Days and days later, another call to the courthouse revealed that the writ had been issued. But no word about this from Mr FineTalkingLawyerMan. We fell off his radar hard as soon as the trial was over. I definitely wasn’t feeling the love.
The con artist tenant begged us to allow her a week to move out before having the sheriff pull her out. We agreed and didn’t submit the writ to the sheriff. Surprise surprise she wasn’t out by that date. We had the writ submitted to the sheriff and endured two more scheduled then cancelled final walkthrough dates before she stopped communicating completely.
During my last phone conversation with her she told me she wanted to see me alone because there were things about my husband that I didn’t know that she felt I should know. I guess I’ll never learn those STARTLING REVELATIONS.
We finally had the sheriff put the notice to vacate on her door, although it later became clear that she had abandoned the apartment before the sheriff came around. Look at it. It’s so beautiful.
To my great amusement, the other tenants planned a party to celebrate her eviction.
The aftermath
We ended up paying our lawyer as much as we would have paid the scumbag tenant if we had just given her what she asked for in the beginning but I’d much rather give my money to our surpassingly excellent lawyer, able to salvage and win our botched eviction attempt, than the tenant from hell.
When it was all over and the problem tenant was out, I was left feeling disgruntled about every aspect of my life, except for my job, which is awesome. It’s taken me weeks to get over this ennui.
