When You Need an Eviction Attorney

As a landlord you should have several experts that you rely on and speak to often. These include your accountant, your real estate agent, your property manager and your eviction attorney. Typically, a landlord can handle his own evictions in court. They can be time consuming, but they are not complicated or overly legalistic. Occasionally, though, you should pay an expert to handle them. Here are some cases:

• One of the first ones that you should have your eviction attorney handle is ones that involved lease violations. Unfortunately, these cases can fall apart into he said/she said arguments. Your attorney should review your case prior to filing the paperwork and insure that you have enough evidence or strong enough grounds to press forward with an eviction case. If you don’t have enough evidence you should either be sent back to gather it or you will need to wait until the lease violation occurs again.
• If the tenant receives any rental assistance through the government or another agency, it may pay to have your attorney file this eviction. Occasionally, the tenant that is one public assistance will also have access to free legal help. If the eviction process is new for you, it may be intimidating and difficult if you arrive at court to find you are meeting with an attorney that represents the tenant. They can easily use your inexperience against you in court to win the case for the tenant or at least get a favor agreement for them.
• Eviction attorneys can also be helpful if you believe the tenant is going to vaguely defend themselves by bringing up false information such as accusations that you as the landlord are racist or sexist. The courts are generally very sensitive to these allegations and you do not want to be trying to defend against these in open court.

Having an eviction attorney on your team as a landlord is very important if you are going to be successful in the rental business.