Arbitration & Mediation

The Audacity of Desperation?

By Christopher Annunziata

It started out like a normal, court referred medation.  A tenant on a month-to-month lease moved out of the property without proper notice, and owing at least one month’s back rent.  The landlord claimed it was two months, plus the month the law allowed her to claim for the tenant’s failure to provide proper notice.

During mediation, I learned that the tenants moved out because they heard, second hand, no less, that the landlord might put the house up for sale.   Since there is no use crying over spilt milk (they were out of the house several months and tied to a new lease), I did not press the tenants on why they didn’t call the landlord to see what her timetable was and find out how much notice they would have before closing occurred.  For whatever reason, they felt packing up and moving out was the best way to protect themselves. Long story short, we worked out an arrangement to settle the outstanding debt and security deposit issues.

On the way out, the landlord actually asked me, “Do you want to buy a nice house in Suburbia?”

Full post as published by CKA Mediation and Arbitration Services Blog on August 06, 2008 (boomark / email).