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OHIO: our landlord breached his land contract...what are my rights?

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Do I have any rights as a tenant whose landlord breached his land contract agreement?
We have been living here for nearly two years. Our rent is paid through the end of June (we have receipts!) and our lease isn't up until 10/1/2019. technically if you consider we paid first, last and security deposit when we moved in we would be paid up until the end of July. We found out our "landlord" breached his land contract (which we were initially unaware of). we went to court and the judge seemed sympathetic to our situation and gave us a continuance to get all of our paperwork in order (there is a lot!) and have to go back on 5/30 to show all of our receipts and leases and paperwork to the judge. the attorney for the bank (the bank is in new york) filed a motion to evict last week asking that the judge grants the motion to evict us in 7 days. which is before our court hearing on the 30th. what rights do we have?? intially the lawyer sent us an application to fill out to take take over the land contract, but quickly changed his mind when i asked questions about it. one being why we automatically had to pay a $3500 deposit when the other guy only paid $1200, seccond being what the final purchase price of the house would actually be? they also wanted us to fill out forms pertaining to pricing verification asking to list the price, down payment, and monthly fees which we couldn't even fill out because no one would give us the information! Not to mention the rental verification form...that they require to be signed by our current landlord...we don't have one anymore! they also filed an agreed judgement entry where it says the landlord states that he did not give anyone permission to live here and if anyone is living here we are doing so without his permission...which is ridiculous. I have proof and paperwork for everything i have paid here. first, last and security when we moved in and every payment there after! PLEASE HELP!
 


xylene

Senior Member
The judge giving you an extra bit of time, one of the things is probably to get yourself a lawyer.
 
With the judge continuing to the 30th...is it likely he will rule in favor of the ridiculous 7 day eviction request from their lawyer? I can't move in 7 days...i have 3 kids! I'm literally freaking out over this.
 

adjusterjack

Senior Member
Sorry, but you have no rights against the bank who is doing the evicting as there is no longer any protection for tenants when a property is foreclosed.

You do have a right to sue your landlord for his breach if you suffer any monetary damages other than moving costs, new rent and new security deposit because you would have incurred those expenses when your lease expired.

You have 17 days until your next court date. I can't guarantee but I think it is inevitable that you will be evicted so use the next 17 days wisely to find another place to live. If you do nothing until the 30th and get evicted you won't have that much time before the court allows a sheriff to put you out physically. Worse, getting an eviction on your record will make it much more difficult to qualify for your next rental.

Please understand that you haven't done anything wrong. You have been scammed by a crook. I'm just telling you how it's likely to work when you go back to court.

You would be wise to remove yourself and your family as soon as possible.
 
Should I file an answer to the motion to evict? And counterclaim against landlord? They lied I court and said they didn't know he had tenants but I sent in 5 payments directly to them (the landlord convinced me that I Should take over payments so for those months I mailed payments directly to them in my name, cashiers checks, I still have the receipts from the bank) and I spoke to them on the phone during that time too. Castle rock is the name of the company, they basically sell crappy houses for cheap as is. I've put a ton of money in the house because we expected to live here for years and years and eventually own it once we worked out the kinks with the landlord. Even since the court stuff started I had to pay to get a new furnace because ours broke because the crawl space it's in flooded and when I tried to contact Castlerock to get them to fix it since at that point we no longer had a landlord they refused to talk to me because of court and directed me to their lawyer who directed me back to them etc. So I had to shell out the money to replace it because I couldn't not have a working furnace with 3 kids in 20 and 30 degree temps! So now i,have to figure out how to come up with moving expenses because the savings we did have went to the furnace!

Sorry for rambling...
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I disagree that the OP won't be able to recover moving costs. The OP has (had) a contract to stay there until 2019 and the LL breached the contract.
 

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