My wife and I were living in a private residence. The initial lease that we signed with the landlord indicated that the lease was only for a 1 month duration, but we never corrected him on it because we wanted it to be month to month anyway. Well, somewhere along the day, a few months in, I lost my job, and we were unable to keep paying rent. Well our landlord told us don't worry about it, he'll work with us, etc, etc. Well, we initially told him about this at the beginning of March, we paid him for March, but told him that we probably weren't going to be able to do April, but told him we would try. As it turns out, we weren't able to get the money together to pay him, so we ended up just not paying the April's rent to him. We ended up going elsewhere and using the money we did have to put a down payment on another place that was a lot cheaper. We notified him on our final day that we were leaving. Well, he was obviously upset, and wanted his money. He is charging us $5500. He is charging us from when we left to when he was able to get someone in the house, which was about 2 months worth, plus cleaning costs of the home, which we indicated to him in the first place was not very good. We cleaned up everything to the condition it was in when we left. but he still charged us cleaning costs and for a bunch of other things (we haven't gotten an itemized statement as of yet). Well, here's where the problem comes in. He is attempting to sue us. He went to my wife's father in Idaho and had him served with our paperwork, but here's the thing, the man walked to to my wife's father, asked if he knew my wife, the man said yes ... and he put the paperwork on the hood of his truck and walked off. He didn't ask who he was, didn't do anything. Just left his paperwork and went along. Well having been a process server before I was under the impression that this was an invalid service and just ignored it and acted liked we had no idea what happened. As it turns out, apparently the courts are saying that they got a signature from the male they delivered the paperwork to and there's nothing we can do because they sent us the notification indicating we were to be in court. Can we get this judgement over turned? This took place in the state of Colorado. My wife's parents were served in Idaho.
So, if you've been served, have you filed an answer? If not, has a default judgment been granted? If not, you need to get on the ball and start fighting back. What grounds you have and what defenses you have depend on: a) where things are in the process b) what your state's landlord-tenant laws allow c) what documentation and paperwork you have on the matter If the landlord has gotten a judgment against you, then you need to see what the court rules say about having the judgement vacated. You might have that option as a result of improper service, or not. Don't take this sitting down or you'll just get run over by it.
Well, since it was served improperly we did not file an answer, so a default judgment was granted. We have a copy of the original lease (showing the invalid dates), pictures of the residence prior to leaving as well as all the e-mails letting him know that we couldn't afford to be at his residence.
