OUR PROCEDURE
LET'S GET
STARTED
In most situations, an e-mail or fax of all of your tenant’s file documents (rental agreement, application, ledger, correspondence, etc.) can start your case. Please be sure to include a cover sheet with your name and contact information. If you don’t have access to e-mail or fax, please call to set an appointment with a staff member or attorney. Our consultation fee with our attorneys is $300 for up to 1 hour for Residential Evictions.
What we need from you.
SERVING THE NOTICE
After review of your tenant file, we will help you decide which of the many different types of notices is most appropriate to your particular circumstances. We will then promptly prepare the notice and immediately turn it over to a process server to deliver, generally within 24 to 48 hours!
Getting the right notice out and serving it properly makes all the difference in the world.
STARTING THE EVICTION
Preparing the Summons & Complaint.
If the notice time “expires” and the tenant has not complied or moved out, we will contact you in order to get your authorization for the preparation of the Summons and Complaint for Unlawful Detainer (S&C). An owner of the premises, the manager, or some other person who has personal knowledge of the facts of the case must:
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Sign a Verification of the Complaint
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If we don't have it already, send us all signed rental agreements (if these exist), change in terms/rent increase notices, rental applications, and all other relevant documents in their files pertaining to the particular tenancy in question
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Pay for the case.
It saves you time if you make an appointment to come in to our office to take care of these transactions, however we can handle everything via e-mail, fax and/or through the mail if that is more convenient.
FROM FILING TO LOCK-OUT
What a typical, non-contested eviction looks like.
We proceed to file the S&C in the local Superior Court of the district where the property is located. We then immediately start the process of serving a copy of the S&C on each adult tenant. At the expiration of the responsive time (5 to 15 days), if the tenants have not yet filed an “Answer” or other responsive pleading, we will request that the Court clerk enter a Clerk’s Default Judgment for Possession and issue a Writ for Possession. Within about a week or two thereafter, the Sheriff will post the Writ along with the final five-day “Notice to Vacate” and we will contact you as soon as we receive the date and time of your lock-out appointment from the Sheriff. You or your agent must meet the Sheriff at the premises and be prepared to change the locks. The entire process takes about four to eight weeks after the service of the S&C, if the judgment can be taken by default. Please be sure to call our office immediately following the lock-out so that we may file additional documents with the Court in order to apply for the Money Judgment to which you are entitled. There is usually no additional fee for the paperwork needed to request the entry of a Money Judgment.
A CONTESTED EVICTION
What happens when the Tenant fights back?
If any of the tenants “contest” the action filed against them by filing an “Answer” or other responsive pleading within the time allowed, someone with personal knowledge about the tenancy must appear in Court with an attorney approximately 20 days later in order to testify to the facts of the case. Our attorneys have decades of experience in the landlord-tenant field and will make every effort to assure that your experience in Court is both brief and minimally stressful. Sometimes the tenant will respond by way of a motion, those motions are usually nothing more than delay tactics, and you do not need to be present at motion hearings, we will oppose those motions as a matter of course. When authorized by the Client, we can also attempt to advance the hearings so that the delay of the motion filed by the tenant is minimal.
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