Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Virginia

Re: being sued by old landlord for damages

You could contact the local sheriff's office to arrange for service of the papers. Then you might want to consider contacting the landlord or his attorney to see whether some kind of settlement can be worked out.

Only you would know enough concerning the relevant facts and background information to answer your last question.

Re: being sued by old landlord for damages

As the rental market goes soft (so many buying),

we are seeing this more and more: Landlords are

trumping up false and inflated charges of damage

in order to pad their profit margin at the

tenant's expense. I know it is barely cost-

effective to pay an attorney for $1800, but an

attorney like me might give you pointers and organize you to do it yourself.

First, if your roommate received the lawsuit

at an address where you DO NOT LIVE, your roommate can mail it back TO THE COURT, writing

"He does not live here."

However, if BOTH of you have been sued, then

either one of you might be on the hook, so you

will need to fight it in some form, anyway.

I would go SOON to the County General District

Court and look at the court file. Do not say

or sign anything. See what address they are using to sue you. If it is the wrong address,

they might fail to get a lawsuit started by

having bad service. If service is "posted" it

will only be good if they have a reasonable basis

for believing you live at that address.

Please note that you can read the court's file,

but you have NOT been legally "served" until

the Sheriff either hands the papers to you or it

is POSTED on the door of your residence + a copy

MAILED to you. (However, if you gave any reason

to believe that you live at that other address,

then you will be legally bound by any default.)

On the court date, I would go to the court and

sit in the back. If you have any reason to

doubt that you have been legally served (a copy

in the mail does NOT count), then DO NOT ANSWER

when your name is called. Listen very carefully

to what they say. If they start talking about

a judgment, then jump up and say I'm here, but

I did not think they served me properly. If

they talk about "not found" then stay silent.

We need to see the exact text of your lease. You

could fax it to me and pay me my $110 per hour

to give you some pointers by email or phone.

But I DISPUTE that you were supposed to be out

before July 31. That would be highly unusual,

and I would be shocked if your lease said that.

You should file a counterclaim (ONLY when a

lawsuit is validly started) for the loss of your

possessions. There was no valid right to throw

away your things before July 31.

As to the details of the damages, that will be

a question of simply denying that there were any

such damages. There was no need for them to

clean on July 26, if you had a right to stay

there until July 31. So damages for cleaning

are not valid. They cannot speculate whether

you would have cleaned it yourself before July 31.

You also need to challenge the facts and amounts

of any other damages they claim. That will be

a question of the facts, not a question of the

law. Did they give you an inventory of damage when you moved in? They must under the Virginia Landlord Tenant Act. If not, they cannot prove that the damages weren't already there.