Court date was in early August and the house was returned to us mid August. 

Go to the courts and obtain eviction records (Tired landlord) list.$10,000  - $20,000?

And given our volume of bizzness we had the title companies provide date downs for free for us and keep a really cool spread sheet for us that was updated weekly.. this had the property tax's HoA's IRS and first second positions etc.. so we did not have to do all that work.. my competition spent hours at the court house looking at micro fish files.

Once you get the goods on him and the eviction process starts, make sure part of the court order includes him not being able to set foot on the property again otherwise you will want the actual tenant also evicted. 

@Cory LucasMy leases give me the option of declaring the tenant in default when this happens and for other reasons.

But the tenant may have a valid reason to contest or at least delay court proceedings based on your mistakes.

The enrolled agent on this site also goes onto state there is case law (court decisions) that were in favor of cost allocation on Sch E, but the actual cases were not cited, and that if you were "aggressive and willing to fight with the IRS" the case law might actually support this. 

@John ClarkIn general a text message will not hold up in court where a paper receipt would. 

2) What is the attorney's style in Court; are they aggressive or professional?

Learning landlord tenant laws, the court process, collections, marketing, etc is a must.