My tenant is suing me...🙄

[Christen G.]

Hey folks, looking for any experiences you can share that are similar and/or advice on how to best prepare for this upcoming Mediation date. I've never done this before.

Here's the story: we inherited a Section8 tenant that just went south. She was occasionally volatile and unhinged on phone calls and wouldn't let me in for a walk-through/move-in inspection at first (seller hadn't done one) when we took over until I explained twice how much it was in her best interest to do so. Anyway I finally got in, found some broken blinds and other small things and fixed those - and felt we were off to a good start. But she got a little squirley - had a gentlemen living there that wasn't on the lease, would call at all hours of the night and leave weird messages, etc... my PM called her, "the worst I've ever has" - which sucked for him. Anyway she got squirley around re-upping the lease vs. moving out when it was time. She finally vacated - albeit not on the proper terms - without proper notice and left a decent amount of damage. She also owed back rent and late fees (this was all pre-covid) and she didn't show up to do a walk-out, etc... 

We followed the lease and law to a T, sent over the damages/reconciliation, etc... and she ghosted. I thought I'd never see that $1400ish and was ok with that, we were going to get great tenants for that unit. Then I was tipped off to a city service called Landlord Mitigation Fund where, if you're housing a Section 8 tenant and they leave you high and dry like this, you can submit proof and they'll issue you a check. How lovely. I compiled it all (lease, notices, reconciliation, etc...) and 8 weeks later I got a check. Lovely, case closed, right? Wrong.

About 9 months later she starts calling me incessantly -5/6 times a day. I never answered as she had a history of somewhat abusive (drunk, inappropriate) calls to my PM. I eventually had to block her number. The PM messaged me to say she was doing the same to him - leaving him voicemails about suing us. Then the PM got hit with a subpoena to appear in Small Claims - she is suing the PM and myself for $10k?! She's citing that she lived with rats, that we "took" her deposit, etc... As she was Section8 I figured I'd call her case-worker to get to the bottom of it and she just gave me a long sigh (she wasn't just a problem for us, it seems) and said the tenant was most likely at risk for losing her voucher b/c of the owing us back rent and fees and she probably got an ambulance chaser lawyer to encourage her to "go after as much as you can" - which in Wa is $10k.

Like I said - we did everything by the book (again this was all pre-covid), Section9 standards, etc... And when they came in for inspections and dinged us - which was rare but did happen - it was documented, fixed immediately, and passed the next go 'round. It was so by the book that the city got all the paperwork and paid us what she owed. Again, I considered this a done deal and was grateful that the city had such a program.

So I'm wondering if you all have any advice on how to best prepare for this mediation zoom we're doing in a few weeks? I have her full file pulled together including any/all notices, correspondence, Section8 inspections, pest control payments/subscriptions and even emails from the cleaning crew and handymen who had to put the unit back together after she left - stating how gnarly it was. Are all my bases covered? Anything I should be aware of? In Wa, we're not allowed to obtain legal for Small Claims so I'm a little on my own here.  Thank you.