HIRE US FOR YOUR TENANT EVICTIONS
So we can best achieve our goal of evicting tenants within 30 days, we have established a defined procedure for hiring us for our legal services for tenant evictions. The steps are as follows:
1. Sign and return to us the Retainer Agreement:
We prepared a standard Retainer Agreement we ask our clients, the landlord, to sign. It is the same Retainer Agreement whether for an apartment community or single property landlord. The purpose of the Retainer Agreement is to clearly set forth the terms of how this law firm will perform evictions for you. Our standard Retainer Agreement should be reviewed, signed and returned to us before we start an eviction for you. Our Retainer Agreement sets forth important terms under which this law firm will perform legal eviction services. Thus, it is important to read and make sure to understand its terms. Should you have any questions, please be sure to contact us and we will make every effort to answer your questions. After you send us the Retainer Agreement signed by you for the first eviction, then you will not need to sign it again for any future evictions as explained in the Retainer Agreement.
How to obtain our Retainer Agreement? You can get our retainer agreement by one of 2 ways:
1. Download from our website [click here to download Retainer Agreement]; or
2. Ask us to email, fax or mail it to you. Call us, fax us or send us an email requesting us to email, fax or mail it to you.
For Recurring Clients; Many of our clients keep us on monthly retainer or we advance the legal fees and costs and bill the clients. Only once for the first eviction at the time we are initially hired will the Landlord need to sign and return to us the Retainer Agreement. Thereafter, all future evictions will fall under the terms of the originally signed Retainer Agreement.
2. Send us the costs and fees for each eviction:
Because we process a lot of evictions, our policy is to receive the eviction costs (court filings cost and process server cost) as well as this law firm’s legal services fee ($200 for each rental property for eviction) before we start the eviction process. We will not be considered your attorney hired to process the subject eviction until we receive the eviction costs and this law firm’s $200 fee. How can you pay us? We are able to collect the costs and fees by one of 2 ways:
1. You can send in a check payable to the “Law Offices of Kevin H. Fabrikant PL”; or
2. Pay with a charge card such as Visa, Master Card, or American Express.
For Recurring Clients; Many of our clients keep us on retainer month to month to process their tenant evictions. For certain clients, we advance the costs and fees and bill these clients accordingly. Others, we keep a charge card on file and charge the costs and fees based on the number of evictions in a month, and send out to the client/Landlord the charge card confirmation receipt. And for other recurring clients, we compute the costs and fees owed as new evictions to process arise, and send out an invoice for payment of that amount. Also, for these recurring clients, we provide weekly and monthly accounting reports as to how much the costs and fees for the evictions we process cost.
How Much to Pay Us for Tenant Evictions: to determine how much to send us to start processing an eviction or evictions, you can use the following chart;
Number of Rental Properties Subject to Eviction X $185 court filing cost = $__________
PLUS
Number of Tenants in property to evict X $10 clerk summons issuance cost = $__________
PLUS
Number of Tenant in Lease Agreement X $30 process server cost = $__________
PLUS
Number of Rental Properties Subject to Eviction X $200 legal fees = $__________
EQUALS: total to send us to start eviction(s): = $__________
3. Send Us the Lease, unless oral rental agreement exists, and applicable Notice to tenant:
So we can start each eviction, send us (1) the lease agreement, if one is in writing, as well as (2) the notice that was duly given to the tenant(s) to be evicted. If the lease was not in writing, then you will advise us on the Retainer Agreement or the New Eviction to Process Form where indicated the terms that were agreed to, such as the rent amount. The notice that was given to the tenant that you will need to send to us will be either the 3 Day Notice to Pay Rent, 7 Day Notice to Cure, 7 Day Notice of Termination, or the Notice of Non-Renewal of Lease Agreement. We must receive these documents in correct content and form before we can start the subject eviction.
How to send Us these papers;
1. You can fax, mail or email (as an attachment) these documents.
2. For Recurring Clients, we can keep a copy of the body of the written Lease Agreement so we will only need to receive the first page with the tenant’s name and rental property address, and the signature pages of the Lease Agreement.
4. The Sheriff Removal:
After we obtained the Final Judgment and Writ of Possession giving legal possession of the rental property back to the Landlord, if the subject tenant has not voluntarily vacated the rental property, it is time to hire the Sheriff. The Sheriff is hired to execute the Writ of Possession. Execution of the Writ of Possession means: that the Sheriff sets a day and time to go to the evicted tenant’s rental property and to make sure the evicted tenant(s) leave the rental property. The Sheriff goes to the rental property first to post a notice conspicuously located that states that the Landlord will be placed in possession of the rental property, and the evicted tenant forcibly removed, after 24 hours subsequent to the posting of the notice. After the 24 hours expire, the Sheriff will return at a scheduled date and time to the rental property to remove the subject tenant(s). A locksmith or other person must be present when the Sheriff returns in order to unlock the door, and if wanted by the landlord, to change the locks. Then, the Sheriff removes the evicted tenant(s). If the evicted tenant(s) has personal belongings still in the rental property, then the landlord can remove the belongings to the property line. A better approach is to remove the tenant’s belongings to the property line when the Sheriff is present, as that way, under Florida law, the Landlord is not liable to the tenant(s) for any loss or damage to the removed property. However, a landlord is entitled to a lien upon any personal property remaining in the rental property after the Sheriff’s removal. See additional laws related to this topic.
In a majority of eviction cases, evicted tenants leave the rental property after they receive the Final Judgment and Writ of Possession. Therefore, there may not be a need to hire the Sheriff if the Landlord has knowledge of an abandonment of the rental property by the evicted tenant(s). However, if the evicted tenant(s) does not leave, or if the landlord wants to be conservative and go through the Removal process anyway, the Sheriff is hired by paying an additional cost that goes to the Sheriff’s Office for the county where the property is located. Please see the Sheriff Fees and Costs Sheet for the precise costs to the Sheriff, which depends upon what county the rental property is in.
The Process of Hiring the Sheriff:
After we get the Writ of Possession, we will contact you and advise you of the Writ of Possession and you may then decide if you want to hire the Sheriff for the Removal of the evicted Tenant. Remember, an “Evicted Tenant” is a tenant under eviction for which we have received the Final Judgment for Removal of Tenant and the issued Writ of Possession from the Clerk of Court. Whereas, we refer to a “Removed Tenant” as a tenant removed by the Sheriff after the Writ of Possession has been issued and given to the Sheriff for execution. If you do want the Sheriff to perform the removal, we will ask you to first provide us with the required applicable Sheriff cost, or you may pick up the original Writ from us and personally deliver the Writ to the Sheriff’s office along with your payment. If you request that we send the Writ to the Sheriff, we will send to the Sheriff the original issued Writ of Possession along with your payment. The Sheriff will then notify us of the day and time he/she will be at the rental property to execute the Writ of Possession, and we will then notify you. Sometimes we only have one day’s notice from the Sheriff, so you should have on standby the locksmith as well as any persons you need to help you to remove the removed tenant(s)’ personal property and belongings from the rental property. If you deliver the Writ of Possession to the Sheriff’s office, the Sheriff will notify you directly of the removal date and time.
5. Tenant Challenges to the Eviction Lawsuit:
It is possible that a tenant under eviction will fight their eviction. This will occur in around 10% to 15% of all the eviction in our experience. Most of the time, when a tenant challenges an eviction, they do so incorrectly and we can simply file the appropriate motion with the court to dispose of such a challenge without the need of an attorney to go to a hearing or mediation or trial. However, as explained in the Retainer Agreement, if an attorney is required to attend a hearing or mediation pursuant to a tenant’s challenge to their eviction, additional legal fees will be required by the Landlord. The additional legal fees are $50 per hour for each hearing and mediation. And if an eviction lawsuit goes to trial, which very rarely occurs in our experience, then additional legal fees of $50 per hour will be charged to the Landlord. The additional legal fees will need to be paid prior to the subject hearing or mediation. As for trials, we will estimate the number of hours trial preparation and a trial will take (which could be between 2 and 6 hours), and request such legal fees be paid in advance by the Landlord. Should the trial take less time then estimated, we will return to the Landlord the extra legal fees collected. If the trial takes longer then estimated, then the Landlord will owe, at $50 per hour, such additional legal fees. The Landlord will be responsible for all third-party costs associated with a hearing, mediation or trial. They would generally include the court reporter’s and mediator’s fees, if any.
6. Cancellations:
If cancellations are made prior to the filing of an eviction complaint, and your file has been reviewed by an attorney, a $50 attorney review fee will be applied.
