Re: Suing Tenant in Small Claims ... What to Bring?

Re: Suing Tenant in Small Claims ... What to Bring? by Anonymous on June 14, 2012 @19:25

Bring any written notices or correspondence you issued to the tenant and any they provided to you. Hopefully you have some that were mailed as texts and emails may not count and is up to the discretion of the judge.
Bring the lease agreement that the tenant and yourself had signed. Bring the original and not a copy.
You may want to also bring with your anything that shows their past payment history, whether you have a spread sheet, copies of the payments/statement deposits just to have on hand.

Did the tenant have any complaints during tenancy of things broken or repairs needed? Any issues at all? Bring documents of those repairs as well just in case tenant tries to say they didn't pay rent because of something they claimed you didn't fix. You probably already know how they may justify their nonpayment because they probably tried to use it on you already.

The judge will ask the the tenant if they paid the rent in question. If they say yes then the judge will say, "show me." The tenant will have to produce a receipt that you gave them, copies of canceled checks/money orders or direct debits from their account going into yours for payment.

If the tenant says no they did not pay their will either give no excuse or they will try to spin a story of how horrible of a time it was there and they didn't pay rent because of some repair that didn't get done or situation that made residence a hell hole. That's when your evidence of your repairs will be valuable if it comes to that.

Personally, I would organize it in order of date, separating the notices you have for nonpayment from any other information you have regarding tenant issues with repairs or complaints.

Good luck

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