What is the name of your state? Massachusetts.
Situation: My roommate and I were served court papers for a summary process for an eviction from the local civil court. We disagreed with the claims the landlord claimed so we requested a Motion for Discovery for the landlords paperwork, and a motion to transfer the case to the city housing court.. We didn't get the answers very quickly (two and a half weeks later), and so we were unable to inspect the paperwork closely until a week before our rescheduled trail date. When we were finally able to take a look at the paperwork, we contacted the landlord and tried to make sense of the situation and come to an agreement. We almost did, but then the landlord required that we pay his attorney fees by the court date. Honestly, if he had given us more time, we would have just agreed to the amount and gone on our way, but we didn't have that much money to pay the fees by the the landlord's deadline.
We were unable to arrange a meeting/hiring an attorney until the day after our court date. Is a Clerk Magistrate likely to allow a Motion for Continuance for a week so that we may hire an attorney and the proceed with the case? We aren't looking to drag this out, but we definitely don't want to go at this "pro se" and would like representation for the case.
Thanks for any input we can get.
BP
Situation: My roommate and I were served court papers for a summary process for an eviction from the local civil court. We disagreed with the claims the landlord claimed so we requested a Motion for Discovery for the landlords paperwork, and a motion to transfer the case to the city housing court.. We didn't get the answers very quickly (two and a half weeks later), and so we were unable to inspect the paperwork closely until a week before our rescheduled trail date. When we were finally able to take a look at the paperwork, we contacted the landlord and tried to make sense of the situation and come to an agreement. We almost did, but then the landlord required that we pay his attorney fees by the court date. Honestly, if he had given us more time, we would have just agreed to the amount and gone on our way, but we didn't have that much money to pay the fees by the the landlord's deadline.
We were unable to arrange a meeting/hiring an attorney until the day after our court date. Is a Clerk Magistrate likely to allow a Motion for Continuance for a week so that we may hire an attorney and the proceed with the case? We aren't looking to drag this out, but we definitely don't want to go at this "pro se" and would like representation for the case.
Thanks for any input we can get.
BP