Eviction hearing preparation

9 – You are requesting that the court grant you restitution of the premises.

Most courts have several other eviction hearings on your court date. The judge/magistrate wants to get to the crux of the matter and is generally not interested in great detail about how the landlord/tenant relationship went wrong. My advice is to not volunteer information beyond the above listed points. Address the judge/magistrate at all times and not the other party.

How can I best strategize for an eviction hearing?

Evictions are simple matters.  Generally, the tenant either paid the rent or did not pay the rent. There’s really not much strategy involved.  There is generally no need for meeting with your attorney in advance of the hearing.  You will have plenty of time to “strategize” with your attorney on the hearing date if you get there 20-30 minutes in advance.  If your eviction case is complex, you more than likely have a problem with how you proceeded with the tenant prior to filing the eviction.  For example, if your eviction is for nonpayment of rent and you accepted rental payments after posting the eviction notice, you have overly complicated a simple matter.  You can’t have your cake and eat it too.  This means that you cannot evict for nonpayment of rent and then turn around and accept rental payments after posting the eviction notice.  See the problem?

If your resident is an unauthorized occupant or the tenant has let unauthorized occupants into the rental unit, it should be a pretty straightforward case unless you told the unauthorized occupant they could stay there or somehow authorized their occupancy.    If significant explaining is required, there is most likely a problem with your case.  Either the occupant is authorized or unauthorized, it’s really that simple or should be.

There is a good chance that the tenant might lie at court, or the tenant might present fabricated documents like false rental payment receipts.  I’ve even had tenants fabricate copies of cashier’s checks and similar documents.  In this day and age, it is easy to create documents, receipts, checks, leases, etc.  I had a tenant fabricate an electronic payment receipt.  Tenants who are facing eviction will lie to the court and will attempt to present fabricated documents.  They may feel that they have nothing to lose.  How do you strategize for this?  Present your case in a credible manner.  Lies and fabricated documents are a sure way for the tenant to lose the eviction.  Judges have seen all of this many times before.

If you are worried about going to court, the best preparation you can do is go to eviction court on a day before your scheduled hearing, sit in the front row, and observe eviction cases for an hour.  You should learn more in that hour based on what you observe then I can tell you in several pages.

What should I do or avoid doing at court?

1. Avoid interrupting the tenant’s testimony.   You may believe that everything coming from the tenant’s mouth is a lie; however, resist the temptation to interrupt the tenant in order to call out the lies.  You will get a chance to address what the tenant stated.  Judges hate parties that interrupt.  You will lose credibility with the judge if you interrupt the other side when it is not your turn to speak.  Not every “lie” needs to be addressed anyway.  Some “lies” are not significant to the judge or to your case.
2. The court will not expedite your eviction matter because you believe it is an emergency.  All eviction actions are expedited matters which is another way of saying that none of them are.  There is no such thing as an emergency eviction that the court will prioritize over all other evictions already filed.  Generally, if you try to rush the eviction process, a mistake will be made.  Some mistakes require you to start from the beginning again.  Is it worth starting over just because you were in a hurry?  Landlords are often in a hurry because they are trying to make up for mistakes they already made.  Usually, a landlord has given a tenant too many chances to pay rent.  Instead of serving an eviction notice on the day after the rental due date, the landlord has given the tenant three months to catch up.  Now the landlord hasn’t received rent in three months and this has become an emergency.  An expedited eviction is needed.  Unfortunately, the court is unsympathetic to a landlord’s failure to timely post an eviction notice.  Or a landlord may have rented to a person without performing any background check.  The landlord finally does a background check after the tenant has become a problem.  The landlord discovers that the tenant has a history of evictions and other bad things on his or her record.  A landlord’s failure to do a background check before handing over the keys to the tenant is not the court’s emergency.
3. Avoid repeating the same thing over and over again.  Judges are not stupid and do not need to be beaten over the head with repetition of the same claim over and over.
4. Avoid bringing up matters that are not contained in the eviction notice.  Although more lease violations have occurred since the filing of the eviction with the court, you are limited to whatever reasons you listed on the eviction notice that has been filed with the court.
5. Avoid interrupting your attorney when he or she is presenting your case to the court.  You may think that your attorney needs reminded of a crucial fact or needs to repeat what has already been said four times during the course of the hearing but resist the temptation to interrupt your attorney.  An interruption will most likely cause your attorney to lose his or her train of thought and present a less compelling argument as a result.
6. Avoid unnecessarily prolonging the eviction hearing.  Evictions are simple matters.  There are often dozens of eviction cases scheduled for the same time as your case.  If your eviction case cannot be heard by the court within 10-15 minutes, your case is likely a loser.  The more explaining that you have to do, the less compelling your case becomes.
7. Do pay attention to other cases before your case is called.  You can learn how to proceed by such observation.
8. Always be willing to try and resolve the matter especially if the judge asks the parties to try and do so.
9. Always be courteous to the judge, the bailiff, any courtroom personnel and the other side throughout the entire case.
10. Do silence or turn off your cell phone prior to entering the courtroom.
11. Do remove your hat or related item while in the courtroom.

What happens on Judge Judy is good for television ratings. In real life, judges/magistrates are not interested in yelling, shouting, pointing, extended dialogue between the parties, or television ratings.

You are going to court. Dress appropriately. Judges may take you more seriously if you present yourself seriously. Remove your hat when you enter the courtroom. Stand up when the judge enters the courtroom. Speak audibly and clearly when you testify. Watch the other cases that are called before your case. Make a note of how other parties went wrong and don’t repeat their mistakes. The hardest thing for most people is knowing when to stop. The tendency is for parties to just tell the judge one more thing which they think will get the judge over to their side. If they don’t get the signal that the judge is on their side then they want to tell the judge just one other thing and so on.  Let the opposing party make these mistakes.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to refute every “lie” that exits the opposing party’s mouth.  If you have an attorney, follow your attorney’s cues and trust in his/her judgment concerning what should be presented to the court.

Mandatory negotiation prior to eviction hearing

Judges and magistrates often require the parties (or strongly encourage the parties) to try to reach a resolution prior to the hearing.  Landlords who are experiencing eviction court for the first time can be distrustful of the mediation process.  They reason that they have negotiated with the tenant in the past and the tenant has never upheld his/her end of the bargain.

Landlords new to the eviction process need to recognize several key differences between deals struck at the courthouse and prior agreements they have reached with tenants outside the courthouse.

1. Any agreement between the parties will be reduced to written form and signed by the parties and the judge/magistrate;
2. This means that the agreement is enforceable by the court unlike your prior agreements with the tenant;
3. In these agreements reached at court, a failure by the tenant on any of the terms (such as payment amount/payment date for a payment plan or move-out date) results in an eviction;
4. You will not have to return to court to get the eviction.

So drop the uncompromising attitude that you are not going to negotiate with the tenant because of past failures.  The court requires you to do so and unlike past agreements, any agreement you reach in court has enforceable consequences.

If you have additional questions, consult my guide to the Ohio eviction process.