A troublemaker from years past showed up. Five years earlier, when he was visiting family and trying to be a resident (not approved), he used to get drunk, use profanity and threaten 70 year old ladies.
When I saw him a few days ago I told him he wasn’t allowed on the property. He wouldn’t leave the park so the next day I served him a No Trespass at his brothers lot. Turns out the police wouldn’t enforce the document because my lease only allowed me to trespass residents, not guests (we have since amended it but it takes 30 days to kick in).
Anyway he complained to the right person and I got served by a Sheriff yesterday and I have a hearing next week over it. He claims I “stalked him”, “approached him aggressively” and “caused him mental distress”. I was being videotaped by partner when I gave him the No Trespass, so I can easily prove there was no aggression. I have a meeting with my lawyer in a couple days.
My question is has anyone here had a similar experience? How is it possible that even an unauthorized guest can file frivolous claims against a landlord and cost them valuable time and legal fees? My partner suggested adding a term in the lease which says “if you file a frivolous claim against us we can recover our legal expenses from the resident you were visiting”. Does anyone have a lease term like that?
Absolutely — I’ve been there, and I hated it. I learned to ignore the constant bickering and focus only on issues that actually matter. At the end of the day, does a known curmudgeon really affect your business enough to justify spending your time and talent on the problem? You’re a landlord, not a psychologist.
In my case, we had a guy at one property who terrorized the neighbors, so we invited him to leave via a lease termination notice. To our shock, he turned around and bought the home right next to our entrance. He was so awful, with such a bad reputation around town, that everyone knew to avoid him — and didn’t associate him with us. He’d shine headlights into home windows, was suspected of loosening lug nuts on car wheels at night, and his kids broke into our vacant units. He was buddies with the local police officer, and he stole our windmill and kept it in his garage for nine months — we had to call the sheriff to get it back. We filed no-trespass orders; they never worked. Finally, after years of mutual dislike (and a grudging respect underneath it), we learned to coexist as a community — once we stopped the aggression on our end, he stopped his.
At some point you have to accept that certain battles can’t be won and aren’t worth your attention.
That said, if you really want him gone: find a way to evict the person he’s visiting, so he no longer has a reason to come around.
Don’t bother trying to enforce a lease term against him. First, it’s probably illegal in your state. Second, you can’t recover something that doesn’t exist — you’re not collecting $5,000 in legal fees from a guy whose net worth is $3.
Let him be a fool, ignore him, and move on. Good luck defending yourself.