By the Housing Unit
When our client, Karl (fictitious name), first contacted us, he had lived in his unit for about 4 years. He was renting a backhouse and there were several habitability issues.
In May of 2021, he received a 60 day notice to quit wherein the landlady accused him of numerous lease violations, all of which were not true. The landlady had been harassing them for years.
An anonymous warning
She had previously been convicted of a crime and there was a belief she was continuing to engage in illegal activities. One day, Karl received an anonymous letter in his mailbox from a person who stated that they had overheard the landlady speaking with someone who had recently been released from prison. The note plainly warned him to be careful, implying that the landlady was going to have someone physically hurt him or his family in order to scare them out of the unit.
It was clear that Karl and his family were not going to stay in the unit, but they wanted assistance with the unlawful detainer eviction case that had been filed against them.
Uncompromising and unreasonable
The landlady would not compromise and kept making unreasonable offers to settle. We came to realize that she was not going to make any decent offers and therefore began preparing for a jury trial.
Ready for trial with an offer
On the morning of the trial, we showed up ready with our jury trial documents filed and our trial binder prepared. While waiting to be sent out to our trial department, the landlady got cold feet and suddenly wanted to negotiate.
We took advantage of the fact that we were ready and willing to move forward to trial while she was not, so we offered that rather than Karl paying off 3-4 months of back rent and the family moving out, they should be paid to move.
The final offer
The final offer was that the landlady was to (1) waive all back rent, (2) let our client stay at the property for another 60 days for free, (3) and pay our client $2,500. She accepted and the judge signed the stipulation that same day.
Our client Karl and his family were overjoyed with the outcome and noted they could not have achieved such a result without our representation and assistance through the process.
