(June 27, 2014 at 6:11 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: Godslayer, I know this is stressful. It sucks, to be sure. You gotta treat this as one of those things that is part of being an adult. Shit will happen that's not in the plan. Take a deep breath and think with a level head.
There are lawyers out there who will work out a payment plan if you hire them, and who will meet with you for no cost, you can lay out your issue, and they can tell you whether they can help you or not. Most likely this issue would never see court. It would be a couple of hours of filings and maybe a phone call or three. It could be a couple of hundred bucks. I know that's not nothing, but it would be less than hiring a moving van and signing a new lease with a security deposit and first/last months rent.
The bank account thing is for a very specific reason. Putting the rent in a separate bank account creates a paper trail proving that you are not withholding rent because you don't have it, you are withholding it because you need the parties involved to come to an agreement about who is owed rent before it goes to either party. It protects you. Also, if this issue lasts several months, you can keep paying your rent to that account, proving that you are doing so by sending a statement to both parties, protecting yourself.
Eviction is a legal process, not just the landlord deciding to boot you. They have to prove several things before they can do it. This helps your case immensely.
SteelCurtain has excellent advice above, IMHO.
Here's the thing about lawyers. Yeah, they're expensive, but the thing is this - when you need one, it is more often the case that not hiring one ends up costing you more.
Frequently, a letter on a law firm's letterhead or even a phone call from a paralegal is enough to get the parties involved to solve the problem.
