Dramacydle
Junior Member
I need help with a dispute I currently have with my mother's attorney. My mother hired this attorney to serve an eviction notice to her tenants in Los Angeles, CA. When they didn't pay within 3 days, we had an attorney at the Dennis P. Block firm file an unlawful detainer for an eviction. During discovery, the attorney's office requested all rent receipts dating back to when the tenants first moved in. It was difficult to find because they were first moved in by my father who has since passed away. However, during the time my father was still managing the property, he had not raised rents between 1994 and 2002.
Prior to going to court, my attorney was unresponsive and leaving us with little confidence, so I called and asked for a status update, and I asked if there was anything we should be concerned about, specifically regarding rent increases since it was a rent controlled property. I told him that we were not comfortable proceeding to trial unless our case was bulletproof. The attorney preparing the file said his only original concern was that the rent increases were too high but after reviewing all of the numbers, they all looked ok to him and that there wasn't anything we would have to worry about--he said all of the rent increases were legal.
When we appeared in court several weeks later, they still maintained that we didn't have anything to worry about and that the increases were legal. But then our attorneys spoke with the defendant's attorneys and it turns out that a rent increase made by my father in 2002 was too high (it was raised 5% rather than the allowed 3%), which I'll presume he did because he thought all of those years of not raising rent made it justified. After the defendant's attorneys brought this up, our attorneys came back to us and said, "Well, we thought your rents were legal but in fact they're not. We do not recommend you proceed to trial because you will lose based on his technicality." We asked why we were just being told this now when they've had the information to make that determination since discovery--nearly a month earlier. She first claimed that they didn't have that information, but I pointed out to their case information that they did. She said she would look into it and call us back at the end of the business day and that's when they began to ignore all of our phone calls and emails.
After weeks of trying to reach them and not having any responses to our messages, my brother received a call from their office and they offered to refund $1,000 of the nearly $7,000 in attorney and court fees we were charged post-discovery. I argue that we should not have been charged any of those fees because we would have dropped the case had we known we had no chance to win. They tried to argue that it was just a lot of information and that some must have slipped through the cracks.
Is that a legitimate excuse for giving me information that directly conflicts with what they told me--that we had legal authority to evict them when in actuality we did not? And do I have a right to contest payment to them through my credit card company or would I be forced to get it back through small claims or arbitration?
Prior to going to court, my attorney was unresponsive and leaving us with little confidence, so I called and asked for a status update, and I asked if there was anything we should be concerned about, specifically regarding rent increases since it was a rent controlled property. I told him that we were not comfortable proceeding to trial unless our case was bulletproof. The attorney preparing the file said his only original concern was that the rent increases were too high but after reviewing all of the numbers, they all looked ok to him and that there wasn't anything we would have to worry about--he said all of the rent increases were legal.
When we appeared in court several weeks later, they still maintained that we didn't have anything to worry about and that the increases were legal. But then our attorneys spoke with the defendant's attorneys and it turns out that a rent increase made by my father in 2002 was too high (it was raised 5% rather than the allowed 3%), which I'll presume he did because he thought all of those years of not raising rent made it justified. After the defendant's attorneys brought this up, our attorneys came back to us and said, "Well, we thought your rents were legal but in fact they're not. We do not recommend you proceed to trial because you will lose based on his technicality." We asked why we were just being told this now when they've had the information to make that determination since discovery--nearly a month earlier. She first claimed that they didn't have that information, but I pointed out to their case information that they did. She said she would look into it and call us back at the end of the business day and that's when they began to ignore all of our phone calls and emails.
After weeks of trying to reach them and not having any responses to our messages, my brother received a call from their office and they offered to refund $1,000 of the nearly $7,000 in attorney and court fees we were charged post-discovery. I argue that we should not have been charged any of those fees because we would have dropped the case had we known we had no chance to win. They tried to argue that it was just a lot of information and that some must have slipped through the cracks.
Is that a legitimate excuse for giving me information that directly conflicts with what they told me--that we had legal authority to evict them when in actuality we did not? And do I have a right to contest payment to them through my credit card company or would I be forced to get it back through small claims or arbitration?
