Taking Your Tenant to Court for Not Paying Rent

[David Roth]

Hi,

I was wondering if anybody here has dealt with taking their tenant to court before to have debts paid and can give some insight. 

I had a tenant who just moved back home to Toledo because he was let go from his job. I let him go without any extra payments because I wanted him gone. Here's the background though. The original lease I printed for him had a typo and I didn't end up getting a new one to him because I had friends who knew him vouge for him and he seemed like a decent guy (I know, that was dumb and I've never done it with anybody else). I also live at the house as well. On NYE of this year, he went and crashed his car into a neighbor's yard down the road and got a DUI. I paid to get him out of jail the next morning and picked him up, drove him around when he needed for the week, and let him hold back on rent for a bit so he could pay off his lawyer fees and get a new car since his was totalled. He kept giving me updates on his repayment plan, and then kept pushing them back because of new unforseen expenses. I was starting to get a bit sketched out and thought about pulling out a lease to get his signature on something but felt it was a precarious situation at this point. He then said he would have the money once his tax lady got his return in and he got that, plus the stimulus checks in it, and that he isn't spending any extra money on things other than the essentials. Then he got the news he'd be losing his job, said he would still be paying off his debts after he moved back to his parent's, but I have still seen nothing from him other than the $500 in bail money. He now owes me $3,200 and I know he lied about being frugal because he has gone out drinking since, went to NY, and even drove home drunk one night just before he moved out. I am going to call him one last time and if I don't hear anything more concrete, was going to call his mother since he's living at home and I have her number from when he got the DUI. 

Basically my question is, if I take him to court for the money and don't have the lease contract to show the agreement, would all of the other info, texts, and whatnot be enough to win that case? The agreement was a 1 year term which would have ended at the end of August 2021