The recent pandemic has affected the lives of millions all around the world. There’s a significant risk of people facing extreme poverty due to the recession. Millions of people had to lose their jobs, while many more are at a greater risk of losing their homes because of the inevitable evictions. Many of these evictions might be justified as tenants who wouldn’t pay rent regularly, are troublesome, or deserved to be evicted. But some of these evictions can be unjustified, so the tenant should be aware of their legal rights to fight against them.
Being a legal resident, you should always know your legal rights and the laws against eviction. Therefore, the following are a few pointers and legal steps that might help you delay or stop the eviction of your house.
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Table of Contents
Confront your landlord
The most responsible thing for anyone to do whenever you receive notice is to confront your landlord and talk about the situation in detail. If it is a formal eviction, you might receive a notification from the process server. They are a third-party company that will hand you over the legal documents about your removal from your landlord. You should respond to it and make sure of your presence if any court meetings are involved. You can also ask for a delay in the meeting if you won’t be able to attend.
But you should never try to hide or skip any possible meeting in your case. If you have always been a responsible tenant that settled the rent regularly and taken good care of the property, chances are your landlord will be willing to listen to your side of the story.
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Don’t Leave Without Fighting for It
If you consider yourself an overall responsible tenant and have been regularly meeting the needs for your rent and maintenance of the property, the chances are that you can make a strong case. You can plan why you face this situation and what you can do to avoid such a situation in the future.
Educate yourself about the ongoing laws in your country. For instance, At the end of the pandemic, all the evictions were halted under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as CARES Act. Although the protection on the eviction has now ended, the landlord still has to issue a notice 30 days prior.
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File an Answer
If you’ve received an eviction notice, you’ll be required to file an answer. This can be done online, or you can file an answer with a court clerk. This may not be necessary for all countries, but filing an answer before the hearing would help you prove your point in the case. This will benefit you as the court will have valid points about why you shouldn’t be evicted. They will look at all evidence and justification before planning a final decision.
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Look for Legal Help
There are high chances that you might not be allowed to hire a lawyer against your eviction case. But if there’s no such law in your country, it is needed that you seek legal advice that will help you buy some time for your hearings or decisions. This will even get the landlord to rethink their decision because of the fear of prolonged court hearings and spending more on fees for those legal actions.
Even if your lawyer is not successful in getting your eviction halted, they can buy you some more time so that you can find a new place to relocate to.
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Look for State Regulations
There are many rules and laws for a landlord to follow, which most of them are unaware of. You can look for legal rules and fight against them. You can put forward a general denial in your case, disagreeing with the landlord’s reasons for eviction. That will make it difficult for the landlord since they have to put forward evidence to prove their case.
Not only that, but you can use general denial if you think the landlord didn’t comply with the rights of a tenant when you were living in their property. You can always take help from many eviction prevention and diversion programs that were formed during COVID-19.
The pandemic due to COVID-19 has been a difficult time for every individual in one way or another. That’s why it is crucial that people look out for each other and help make lives easier for the other person in any way possible. Don’t let an eviction make it challenging for you.