First lawsuit from tenant. Please advice...

[Andres Blandon]

Hi everyone!

I'm just looking for some advice or a few legal contacts that can point me in the right direction.

I have a tenant that signed a contract for 12 months at the end of December. Now in the beginning of March gave a 1 week notice stating the house was uninhabitable and that she wanted all her rent money for the past 2 months, plus security deposit and last month's rent. She also went on to include other expenses, that all together comes to about 10k. I think it's a ridiculous claim and that she's just looking for some way to get paid from all this.

The house is not new, and she knew this when she went to do the walk through of the property. She started making complaints 2 weeks into her lease. she requests to do things to improve the condition of the property which she had seen and agreed upon when initially signing the lease. First it was the washer and dryer which she claimed were not working properly. I replaced them within 48 hours of her notice. then it was in regards to some bees outside of the house, which I paid to get taken care of promptly and i reasonably understood this could be a issue.

After that she made a claim about the patio screen not being up completely and my property manager went by and took care of it personally. A few weeks later she made a claim hat there were mice it in the house, but there was no proof and did not allow my property manager to enter the property to get it inspected.

By this time the property manager hinted that most of these things were minor and that in her lease it stated she was responsible for any pests inside the house. 

We let her know the pest issues would be her responsibility. She didn't like that response and decided to continue bringing up things that were not true about the condition of the property. Such as stating that the roof had leaks all around the house. This was inspected and no leaks were found. I had personally lived in this house a few months before and did not have issues with the property.

Long story short, she finally paid some inspector which found some minor mildew coming from the AC unit and had him put in the report that it was hazardous for someone to live there. 

By this time she had already moved out and hinted that she would move forward taking legal action against me. I quickly had another professional go in, which did see the same mildew but once tested reported that in no way would this issue make the house uninhabitable.

I have 7 days to respond to her attorney and in no way plan to simply settle outside of court. Unfortunately I had to travel out of state of Florida for work, and need some advice or possibly an attorney that is familiar with this type of situations.

I have heard recently that this lawsuit issue is becoming more common, so would like to hear from anyone that has gone through or is going through something similar.

Thank you!

[Michele Fischer]

I have not gone through this, but it looks like you have your ducks in a row and can probably fight this.

She has officially given you notice that she has vacated the unit?  I would proceed to re-rent it.  Try to stop the bleeding (and her liability to you) as fast as you can.

I would respond to the lawyer with a copy of a move out letter to the lawyer and the tenant.  I would work it up with what she owes for breaking the lease, apply the deposit to it, show what her remaining balance to you is, and note that you will waive the remaining balance if court action is dropped.  Otherwise I'd be firm with the attitude of "see you in court".  You could send the lawyer the report from your inspector and photos of the house at move in (and move out) condition, or hold that for court.

Start gathering all of your documentation from move in to present.  I can't imagine this would hold up in court.  Personally I would not hire a lawyer, just go to court with all of your paperwork.  But if you can't make the court date due to travel you'll need a lawyer.