Landlords often ask me whether or not they need to attend the eviction hearing. In fact, I get this question so often that I will just write an article to hopefully address this question.
Most, if not all, courts in Ohio require somebody to attend the hearing and testify as to the proper service of the eviction notice upon the tenant and to the particular lease violation at issue. Normally, most evictions concern nonpayment of rent, so the court needs someone to testify that the tenant is behind in rent.
Some landlords do not reside in Ohio and do not have a local property manager to attend court on their behalf. These landlords explore several options in order to avoid attending the eviction hearing. I have had landlords who have tasked their maintenance man with serving eviction notices and attending court. I have even had landlords hire neighboring tenants to serve the eviction notice and attend court. Some landlords use my notice server to serve the notice and attend court. All of these individuals are able to testify to properly serving the eviction notice upon the tenant. So we’ve solved half of the eviction equation – the eviction notice was properly served upon the tenant.
The other half of the eviction equation concerns the breach of the lease which is the reason for the eviction. In most cases, the breach of the lease is nonpayment of rent. The maintenance man, the neighboring tenant, and the notice server only generally know that the tenant is behind on rent. They know this because the landlord or the landlord’s attorney told them this information. Their knowledge is based upon hearsay. They heard someone tell them about the nonpayment of rent. They do not have personal knowledge through direct observation that the tenant has not paid rent.
More simply, none of these people have been tasked with the job of collecting rent and keeping track of rental payments. So if the tenant shows up at court and says to the judge that he has paid rent, the only person who can refute that would be the landlord as the landlord is the person tasked with collecting and keeping track of rent. Or the tenant might say that he is not behind in rent because the landlord failed to credit two or three past rental payments. The landlord may have supplied the maintenance man, the neighboring tenant, or the notice server with a rental ledger but none of these people are in a position to refute the tenant’s claim of uncredited past payments. They are going to respond with, “Let me check with the owner on that, judge.” So there’s a potential problem here.
Why did you hire a lawyer? Can’t my lawyer testify for me? A lawyer is prohibited from testifying in court on client matters. A lawyer represents a client and does NOT act as a witness for the client. A lawyer cannot act as a witness because his knowledge comes from what he heard the client say, i.e., hearsay. Hearsay is generally prohibited in courts because it is unreliable.
Do you, the landlord/owner, need to attend the eviction hearing? If you hired a notice server, you will generally not need to attend the hearing; however, if the tenant makes claims such as those above you will need to attend the hearing because the notice server does not possess more than vague, general knowledge on the breach of lease (usually nonpayment of rent). How will you know what the tenant will claim? No one will know until the tenant shows up at the hearing.