Monday 6 February 2012

First Day in Court

First, and hopefully the last, day in court.  Jessi and I have been trying to get our security deposit back from our landlord for almost a year now.  The carpet in our spare room was destroyed.  The cat has diabetes and before we figured it out she had been peeing outside of the litter box.  Because it was the spare room, we didn't notice it until the it was really bad.  And then we used the wrong technique to get it out of the carpet.  It was a disaster.  And the landlord thought that was reason enough for him to keep the deposit.

So, there is a surprising amount of prep work that can go into a court appointment.  I kept putting off the prep work.  I think that I was hoping that the problem would go away.  I don't do well with confrontation and confrontations involving money are my absolute worst.  I also don't do well when I am not allowed to speak freely.  Which makes court difficult for me, because it is necessary to present yourself in a manner that is respectful to the judge.  And that usually means only speaking when spoken to.  So I was scared of this particular endeavor, and because I was scared, I kept putting it off, hoping it would go away.

But back to the prep-work. First, we had to send a certified letter to the landlord telling him to repay the deposit within a certain timeline.  We did that back in September.  Then when the timeline that we had suggested past, we are able to get a court date.  That took me until December.  The court gave me a date for the 6th of February.  Then we had to serve the papers to our landlord.  With the help of a friend of mine, that was accomplished.  We had to do a substituted service, which basically means giving the court papers to someone at the home of the person being sued.

After all of the paperwork was done, we had to gather our evidence.  Which was a surprisingly little amount of evidence.  We had a few phone calls.  And a few text messages, and copies of our checks.  The interesting part is that we never actually had to use it.

We sat down in the courtroom and listened to a few cases before we were called.  Jessi and I went up to the front of the courtroom and our Landlord was there. The judge asked us what our case was and we told him.  He listened for a moment and then told our landlord that we were in the right.  And that he could counter sue us for the money that it cost to repair or replace the carpet.  And then we could counter sue because he didn't pay us in time or something.  The judge said that this could drag on for quite a while.  He then asked if we would be willing to step into the hall and try to talk it out.  Then we could come back in and if we needed him to he would rule, or if we could work it out he would just drop the case.

So we stepped into the hall and talked it out with The old landlord.  In the end, he agreed to give us six hundred dollars over the next two months.  We got the first installment at the end of the day. And we have a signed agreement to have him pay the rest!  Here's to hoping the rest of it comes!




2 comments:

Jessy B said...

I'm really proud of you babe! You did awesome. I am going to stay positive about getting the rest of the checks. And I'm going to try to forget about it for now!

Melissa B said...

Wow! I'm impressed :) I don't know if I'd go to that extent over a deposit..well, I might, depending on how much. Anyway, well done!!