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hello everyone it is july 22nd 2020 as we film right now and the eviction tsunami is here so if you are a nervous tenant or maybe you are a kind-hearted probate lawyer whose cousin just received an eviction lawsuit watch on because eviction legal actions are unlike any other you have to know how to fight them so let me begin with two disclaimers first i slant pro tenants so landlords out there i understand that you're probably very frustrated and you have problems and you have a mortgage to pay trust me i understand that but i'm kind of tenant oriented and that's what this is focused on second landlord tenant laws very state by state and i only have time to give you the important things that you need to be aware of in this legal brief otherwise it will become kind of like a legal long and no one likes that channel so i'm gonna have to keep it simple and straightforward okay so we have to kind of start with a sad statistic according to this article from cnbc over 32 percent of households failed to make all the rent payments in july of this year right before all the eviction moratoriums are ending that's 32 and now it looks like congress is not going to approve the additional 600 unemployment payments per week and so this is just going to be horrible i heard from a lawyer friend of mine that does evictions for landlords that she has about 500 cases to file next month 500 eviction actions and she's just a one small person law firm so the wave is coming and here's the things you have to know one an eviction case moves much quicker than any other kind of lawsuit landlords long ago got legislators to speed up the process of eviction and perhaps rightfully so lawsuits regular lawsuits take months years to complete so eviction lawsuits are super streamlined upon receiving the eviction lawsuit you only have days sometimes as little as five days to respond and avoid a default so if a client calls you a week after the eviction lawsuit is served forget it it's too late massachusetts is one of the more lenient jurisdictions and look at how tight the litigation process is you have to answer the complaint in seven days and the trial is within 23 days of the answer so the whole litigation process including discovery is designed to be completed in 30 days next landlord tenant law is focused on pre-suit requirements state laws go into much detail and have very complex laws on what a landlord must do in order to evict a tenant the laws require notices served or posted within a certain number of days after non-payment the first notice is a notice to pay rent or quit and this is what is served when you miss rent you can see in this example form that not only must the landlord put in the exact amount of rent that is overdue but must also put in the exact date that the tenant must move out and he must or she must serve it in very specific ways now because statutory pre-suit requirements are strictly construed the very first thing you look for is whether the landlord put the exact correct amount of rent that is owed and put the correct move out date if anything is off that can be a complete defense to the eviction lawsuit forcing the landlord to start all over and having the lawsuit dismissed hint how was the tenant given notice that's something that they'll often mess up so failures of condition proceeding is your first line of defense the next thing to keep in mind is that if you're going to attempt to argue over the amount due and owing you almost always are going to have to deposit the disputed rent with the court so in case you lose the lose the landlord will get paid now this is usually going to be a losing proposition in these coming months especially because the problem is that people don't have jobs that don't have the money to pay so putting the rent into the registry is a no-go from the get-go so that's something you're going to have to keep in mind most of the time if you don't have the money to pay rent into the court and you can't find an exception you are going to lose as though you hadn't even answered the complaint this is key i mean you won't even be able to say anything to the judge no money no argument remember that but in every state there are exceptions to this rule and again i don't have time to go into every state's law but look at the florida statute for example here you can see the requirement that the disputed rent be paid into the court registry but hiding in there if you really look hard is an exception you have to pay into the registry or i love the word or or file a motion to determine the amount of the rent so your job in fighting an eviction is to look at the landlord tenant statute in your state and find the exceptions to the deposit rule fitting your argument into an exception will allow you to fight the eviction without having to pay the full amount of rent and even if you lose it will buy you time and if you cannot find a defense or you lose in court the final arrow in the tenant defense quiver is bankruptcy the automatic stay when you file bankruptcy will stop an eviction right away it is then required of the landlord that he or she asked the bankruptcy court to lift the stay and allow the eviction to continue in my experience a bankruptcy petition can allow a tenant to get out from other onerous payments and bring the landlord to the table as far as working something out with them because now you've added a layer of difficulty to kicking you out of your place if anything it requires the landlord to find a lawyer admitted to the bankruptcy court in your area and that alone takes time so remember you have to move fast in defending eviction look at the landlord's pre-suit requirements very closely and find an argument that doesn't require you make payment of the rent and if all else fails think about bankruptcy if things are that bad i know times are bad for a lot of people right now take care and best of luck to you and yours