Q: We have a court date tomorrow morning 7/31. Our lawyer has told us that the tenant's lawyer went to court on 7/26.
Our lawyer says the court messed up the dates. Our Multnomah County Court docs state 7/31. Other lawyer says since we didn't show, we defaulted. Also, which is more the problem, we accepted rent while the 30 day for cause notice to terminate was in process. Our notice referred to ORS 90.414 - acceptance of rent while a termination action is pending will not waive the right to evict on this notice. Unfortunately, we didn't read the exceptions and our lawyer lead us to believe we could except rent. Now we have been told we need to start over. Should we go to court tomorrow anyway without our lawyer? We just don't understand what happened on 7/26. Could other lawyer have gone to court on 7/26 and tell them we accepted rent, therefore nullifying our notice to vacate.
Our tenant told us tonight that we can come inspect tomorrow (24 hr. was posted), but she has not remedied any of the issues.
A: If you have court papers saying be there tomorrow you definitely should go. Even if there was already a default taken against you, at least show the papers to the Judge if you want to try to have the default set aside and your case reinstated. That said, if there is a fatal flaw in your case, reinstating it won't do you any good and you will have to start over. If your lawyer is giving you bad advice, you may want to consider changing lawyers. Oregon is a particularly "tenant friendly" state and landlords are held to strict compliance with everything - law and procedure - or risk having their cases thrown out and owing the tenants court costs and attorney's fees. Attorney's may cost money, but they can be far cheaper in the end than having to pay the other side's attorney, their court costs, and having to start over. Good luck.
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