OT - landlord problems, is this criminal?

[herpyderp]

hi my brother is having problems with his landlord. my brother doesnt make much money, he works as a cook in a chain restaurant at min wage, and its seasonal hours which means its the season his hours are getting cut due to low customers. he lives in this dump of a house with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's two daughters, for about a year. the house has all sorts of problems with mold and the heating and even a part of the kitchen floor seems to be caving in. the toilet has been running nonstop for months which is probably leading to a very high water bill i'd guess. the landlord wont fix anything, in fact my brother can never even get ahold of his landlord to fix things because he would not give him his phone number and he has some other guy come around every month to collect the rent even. its pretty ridiculous.

well a few weeks ago my brother got served with court papers from his landlord saying that he owed his landlord ~$9000 and that his wages were going to be garnished to pay for it. the court papers were only half filled out, didnt even state what the landlord was claiming my brother owes money for, and were dated from several months ago but were only just now delivered to him and his work has only recently received the garnishment order. my brother had no idea what the $9000 was supposed to be for but we all assumed it was because the house was in such bad shape and the landlord was trying to blame my brother for it all in order to get my brother to pay for it. my brother immediately started taking photos and got inspectors to come in to document that he had not done any damage and the place was so run down because the landlord refused to upkeep it. the papers said he had 20 days to protest the claim and my brother was pretty upset because since they were dated from months ago, the time had obviously run out for him to protest it. but he went to the courthouse though and that turned out okay, thankfully he was still able to set up a hearing about it in front of a judge, which happened this morning. there we found out the landlord was not in fact trying to get my brother to be the one to pay the costs of repairing the house back to shape, his claim was that my brother had not been paying rent. however my brother has all his rent receipts, which is EXTREMELY fortunate because he is not the organized type of person who normally keeps receipts, and the judge set another day for when he could bring those in to prove he had been paying his rent, and the landlord's claim against him will be thrown out. the landlord was very obviously pissed about how it had turned out.

what we think the landlord is doing is, he filed the papers and didn't deliver them for several months deliberately, because it said my brother had only 20 days to file a protest. we think the landlord believed that after a few months had passed, my brother would not have the chance in court to prove he had paid his rent, the court tell him his window to protest had run out and they would not see him, and the garnishment for $9000 rent that my brother HAD paid would go through automatically without my brother even being able to do a thing to stop it.

this HAS to be some kind of crime, it just cannot be legal to try and trap people into paying huge amounts of money through lies, is there anything legally my brother can do to get the landlord punished for doing this?

[Deleted]

Speak to a Lawyer, many give a free consultation.

[Rotted]

If your in the uk, then the state of that house is the landlords problem, so from there onwards everything youve posted, your bro needs to speak to a solicitor and get a Health & Safety officer in as well to do their own report, if its as bad as you say and its not your bro fault, then HS will come down on the landlord like a tonne of bricks because there two children living there

[herpyderp]

If your in the uk, then the state of that house is the landlords problem, so from there onwards everything youve posted, your bro needs to speak to a solicitor and get a Health & Safety officer in as well to do their own report, if its as bad as you say and its not your bro fault, then HS will come down on the landlord like a tonne of bricks because there two children living there

yeah but its not about the house, my brother doesnt care about the house, he is looking for another place and getting out of under that landlord's thumb, its about the landlord intentionally trying to screw his tenants into paying him money for no reason by withholding delivering court papers so that the tenants won't be allowed to prove to a judge that the lawsuits are completely bogus and they don't actually owe him any money. that has to be some sort of fraud or something.

[belfpala]

Speak to a Lawyer, many give a free consultation.

This. Almost all lawyers involved with landlord/tenant law will at least listen to your brother's story and tell him if he has any kind of case. For free.

[herpyderp]

This. Almost all lawyers involved with landlord/tenant law will at least listen to your brother's story and tell him if he has any kind of case. For free.

yeah but after a consultation he will have to pay :\ my brother doesnt want to pay money to get this sleazeball charged with a crime, once he brings in his receipts his landlord's claim will be thrown away and my brother wont be out anything but a few hours of his time, but the landlord shouldnt just be allowed to go on and pull this shit with more tenants when maybe next time he will get a tenant who doesnt keep his receipts and he will win and the poor guy will be paying $9000 for a fake debt he never owed because nobody punished the landlord the first time around.

[Roose]

Some landlords are extremely dirty bastards. I have worked in rentals for 15 years and have seen a lot.

Tenants do not realize they do have rights. Landlords will try to make you think you do not. At least you do in the states.

Document it all. Take pictures and write down everything wrong. Here, you do not have to legally pay your rent if the unit is not in proper working order. Biggest issues are usually lack of critical repairs and broken AC/heater. I see a ton of renters afraid to call because they think they will get charged.

If you pay your rent, you are entitled to access to that property under the conditions of the law. Again, not sure what Canada's laws are like, but I would imagine they favor tenant rights.

---------- Post added 2012-10-24 at 12:56 PM ----------

yeah but after a consultation he will have to pay

Check for local services. Ask the housing authority or something like that. I know yall have something similar. Mold and mildew can easily be a health and safety hazard which may be a health department matter, especially since they have kids there.

[Jackuli]

yeah but after a consultation he will have to pay :\ my brother doesnt want to pay money to get this sleazeball charged with a crime, once he brings in his receipts his landlord's claim will be thrown away and my brother wont be out anything but a few hours of his time, but the landlord shouldnt just be allowed to go on and pull this shit with more tenants when maybe next time he will get a tenant who doesnt keep his receipts and he will win and the poor guy will be paying $9000 for a fake debt he never owed because nobody punished the landlord the first time around.

However, unless he figures out what to do by talking to a lawyer nothing will get fixed. If he can find a way to get the case thrown out and asks family friends for a favor to find someone who'll do the case for him for cheap then the landlord will just keep doing this for years more to come.

[Skippy88]

I would advise your brother to get out NOW! Pay the landlord whatever he's owed and get out. This isn't going to end well.

Defiantly see a lawyer but you said he's not getting paid a lot and not sure if the GF is making anything. Maybe the parents or other relatives could help

[Vizardlorde]

I would advise your brother to get out NOW! Pay the landlord whatever he's owed and get out. This isn't going to end well.

Defiantly see a lawyer but you said he's not getting paid a lot and not sure if the GF is making anything. Maybe the parents or other relatives could help

llol are you the landlord?

[Lodreh]

...its about the landlord intentionally trying to screw his tenants into paying him money for no reason by withholding delivering court papers so that the tenants won't be allowed to prove to a judge that the lawsuits are completely bogus and they don't actually owe him any money. that has to be some sort of fraud or something.

I don't know how property management works in Canada and in the US it varies state by state. Having said that where I come from (NC) the landlord will file the papers with the clerk of court... the clerk of court in turn dispatches county sheriff's deputies to hand deliver the papers to the residence... a court date will be on the paper delivered usually within 10 days or so... in 10 days the small claims case will be heard by a magistrate. If unopposed or if ruled in favor of the landlord there will be a judgement issued... a court order to pay the owed amount within 10 days or move. As you can see the landlord doesn't deliver the papers... the county deputies do... so the landlord isn't responsible for you receiving those papers.

[Gheld]

When you serve somebody court orders, the law requires the response window to be from the date they were served (not the date they were drafted). So if the land lord was planning to run down the response time by serving your brother late, then he's pretty retarded.

Theoretically if your brothers landlord is knowingly lying to the court about your brother not having paid the rent it is perjury, but it would be the judges privilege of whether or not to press perjury charges, based on whether or not the judge feels that the landlord was knowingly lying about not receiving rent.

[herpyderp]

I don't know how property management works in Canada and in the US it varies state by state. Having said that where I come from (NC) the landlord will file the papers with the clerk of court... the clerk of court in turn dispatches county sheriff's deputies to hand deliver the papers to the residence... a court date will be on the paper delivered usually within 10 days or so... in 10 days the small claims case will be heard by a magistrate. If unopposed or if ruled in favor of the landlord there will be a judgement issued... a court order to pay the owed amount within 10 days or move. As you can see the landlord doesn't deliver the papers... the county deputies do... so the landlord isn't responsible for you receiving those papers.

Here there was no officers involved at all. My brother actually recieived his papers in the mail although it was clear from what the judge said that that should not have happened. But the landlord told the judge it was not done by mail and that he had delivered the papers into my brothers hands six times and that's why they were several months old. When my brother filed the counter motion the clerk gave him the papers to deliver to his landlord and said anybody could give them to his hands but my brother had to at least be in sight when it was done.

The landlord definitelyis perjuring there is no question about that, he is suing my brother for unpaid rent when the landlord wrote the rent receipts himself! He told the judge that after six times of delivering the papers into my brothers hands (a lie) and him not doing anything they should not even be looking at my brothers case, they should not even be looking at his counterclaim, they should just put the garnishment through "and that should be that". If that wasn't an admission of the game he was playing, I don't know what is. The judge just raised her eyebrow at him and was like "don't you think he should be allowed to plead his case?" Thankfully she wasn't an idiot and seemed to be onto him.

Its pretty clear to us the landlord was banking on my brother thinking he was too late to make a counterclaim because of what it said in the papers. My brother said his previous neighbours were being garnished by him so he has definitely gotten away with this before. In low income housing like that people who live there may not be the type to know what to do in legal situations like that or don't keep proof of payments and think they can't fight it.

[Purlina]

Your brother should have reciepts, or at lest a paper trail of some kind.

Provide these to the court and your done.

[Skippy88]

llol are you the landlord?

No just someone who's heard the horror stories. If the landlord is already: not keeping up with the repairs, taking him to court without talking it over first, half-filled out paperwork, paperwork not being delivered on time my question is what's next? The already sour relationship is only going to get worse. If I was the brother I wouldn't stick around to find out. I get he may want to put up with some shit in exchange for a I assume low-rent place to stay but he crossed a major line trying to take him to court.