GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS ON EVICTION COSTS

Last month we reported to you that the proposed Florida budget for 2009 would include an $85 reduction in filing fees. It is official now, and the budget is now law. Beginning July 1, the filing fees will indeed be $85 less, and this is a great victory for the landlord. Unfortunately another eviction cost will increase. The fee for the Sheriff to serve eviction papers has increased by statute from $20 per defendant to $40 per defendant. This was in the works for a long time and will most likely increase the costs of your eviction, as most Private Process Servers will increase their rates.

Click here  for more details on the new laws to help you budget.

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THE OTHER TENANT WILL COME IN NEXT WEEK TO SIGN!!

It is a Friday, and your approved tenants are coming in to sign the lease and move in Saturday. Problem is that one of the tenants “Mary” had to go out of state for an emergency. No problem. Mary will be back in Florida next week, and “John” says she will sign then. Yup. Never happens.  You forget. Now you have a problem at the unit, need to take legal action, John is no longer there, and Mary and “friends” are residing there.  Think it does not happen? We see it all the time, and now you and we have a mess on our hands.
 
Click here  for more info on how to avoid this mess.

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THE RESIDENTIAL ORAL LEASE

It’s not too common to see an oral lease in the multifamily setting; however, they continue to pop up often in single family homes that are self-managed.  For instance, a property manager is retained by an owner and finds the current tenant has an “understanding” with the owner, but no written lease. The owner may have decided not to have a written lease with a tenant, thinking an eviction would be easier or quicker. If there is no written lease, is an oral lease binding, or is it simply a month-to-month tenancy? 
 
Click here to read about the Residential Oral Lease.

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THE EMPLOYEE TENANT

Many employees of apartment communities live on-site, receiving either free or reduced rent as part of their compensation package. The arrangement works out fine until such time as the employee either quits or gets fired. While the Employee Lease Addendum clearly states that the former employee must vacate, this person has neither budgeted for paying rent somewhere else and was not prepared to move on short notice. On top of that, he or she probably will not get a good reference from you! The result? You have a fight on your hands with a desperate tenant you need off the property, and you possibly have made some serious mistakes which will jeopardize an eviction.

Click here to make sure your landlord-employee/tenant relationship is in order.

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EVICTION STATUS UPDATES

Once you send an eviction to your attorney, you usually trust that the attorney has filed the case and it is progressing as planned. Sometimes you file 3 cases at once, and one is over quickly while the other two seem to languish. What is happening here? Different judges are often assigned the cases, and when multiple cases are filed, they randomly get assigned to the various county judges. How do you find out the eviction status?  Our firm gives up to the hour, accurate status updates by having staff check with the court or the judge’s assistant, when appropriate. We could let you into our computer, BUT that info is never as current as the court system. It only tells you what we did, not what is happening at the court. We believe eviction statuses should be checked by humans, and that often requires a call to the courthouse.

Click here for your current eviction status.

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COMMERCIAL LAW AND YOU - Current Issues In Regard To Commercial Leases In Today's Troubled Real Estate Marketplace

There is no doubt we are in one of the worst economic downturns in recent history. Commercial tenants are getting desperate and are desirous of modifying their lease terms. Landlords, in desperation as well, often decide to “work with” the commercial tenant. Notwithstanding the good faith efforts being undertaken by commercial property managers and commercial landlords to modify the leases to accommodate tenants during these troubled times, many of these modifications and efforts to alter the lease terms to assist the tenants are actually being used by tenants as affirmative defenses to the enforcement of the lease and future litigation.

Click here to see how no good deed goes unpunished when “working with” the commercial tenant by Commercial Law Attorney Kevin Jursinski.

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PLEASE DON’T THROW AWAY YOUR TONER CARTRIDGES!

Most of us now use laser printers, and some still use the desk jet printers, both of which have toner or ink cartridges respectively. You may have noticed that with laser printer cartridges, you are even given a mailing label to send the empty one back to the company for “disposal”.  Don’t be fooled. They reuse, refurbish, refill and sell them. They have value! We recommend you donate your empty cartridges to your local service organization, such as the Lions’ Club. They receive between $1 and $3 for each of them!! The next time you throw one away, you just threw away money that could have gone to a good service organization!

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