<p>My Tenants wrote bad checks and left utility bills unpaid， in addition to not complete the lease. Total amount is totaling 10K, a substantial amount, not counting the incomplete lease. I need to turnover the files to the collection agencies. Any recommendations? Should I find an agency or a lawyer?</p>
<p>This guy travels all over the place, has an international business. Although the bad check he wrote was on a corporation that his son owns and his son is local in the bay area. Of course, I will go after him and his son the same time. I am lucky that he has vacated the house in early Oct. and there is no damages to the house.</p>
<p>2 separate issues. The bad check should be handled by the “hot check” agency in your local government, here in Texas the District Attorney for our county handles them.</p>
<p>The lease needs to be broken out into damages…what you would have received had he maintained his obligation and you need to get a judgement against him for that money. You could then turn the judgement over to a collection agency, but most of the time, these things can go uncollected.</p>
<p>The hot check on the other hand has criminal applications and they don’t typically turn a blind eye to that.</p>
<p>I will agree that the collection agency is useless. We own a small company and used a collection agency one year for our uncollected balances. They were useless. So bad that one customer called again the following year and I told him we wouldn’t work for him unless he paid the old balance so he did. The collection agency demanded their cut of the collection!!!</p>
<p>We now take unpaid balances to small claims court. We do much, much better. As a matter of fact, one customer said “go ahead and send me to collections” as if he knew it would be useless. I informed him we don’t do that but use the courts and he immediately paid.</p>
<p>I used a collection agency once to get paid on a 10-year old judgment. They got me the $$ within a month. It was awesome. But I already had the court judgment. I would go to a lawyer first - or represent yourself in court - then if you still can’t get payment, turn it over to the agency realizing that they keep 50% of whatever they collect. In my case 50% of something was a lot better than 100% of nothing.</p>
<p>I got a judgment on a tenant once. He had a nice Corvette that he LOVED like a baby. I got the VIN # and told the sheriff’s office where he worked. They went to his place of business with the judgment in hand and towed the Corvette while he was out to lunch. When he got back, his coworker told him what happened. He paid that judgment immediately. It was great :).</p>
<p>If you file in court, odds are decent you’ll get a default judgement because the guy won’t show. That is enforceable. You can hire someone then.</p>
<p>You have to decide how likely is it that you will be able to collect. The amount of damage you quoted exceed the small claims court limits in most jurisdictions - which means you might need to hire a lawyer to get a judgement. If your tenant had assets- of course you should get a judgement, it will last 10-20 years in many jursidictions. The length of the judgement means collectors might be successful in chasing the guy. On the otherhand, if the tenant didn’t exhibit a lot of assets (no Corvette), you need to decide how much good money you are going to spend chasing bad money if you need to get a lawyer involved. You also have to factor the chance the tenant will declare bankruptcy - any judgement will be voided in bankruptcy. </p>
<p>As far as the bounced check, this varies by state and can literally vary county by county. In a large metropolitan, there is no way the sheriff is going to chase a routine bad check - there are too many armed robberies, rapes and murders to investigate. In a rural county, a bad check may be the highpoint of their day.</p>
<p>In our area small claims is up to $15K, so this would fall under it. Agree that you’ll get a judgement if he doesnt show, and can file a writ of fi fa and so you can try to collect it from his bank account. But I think you will need the local banking info of his personal account (if the lease was signed by him personally, not as his business) though maybe since he wrote the bad check off the business you might be able to go after that. Not sure. Ak a local atty.
Agree that writing a bad check is a criminal offense, and depending on the size of the check it could be a felony.</p>
<p>In our area small claims is up to $15K, so this would fall under it. Agree that you’ll get a judgement if he doesnt show, and can file a writ of fi fa and so you can try to collect it from his bank account. But I think you will need the local banking info of his personal account (if the lease was signed by him personally, not as his business) though maybe since he wrote the bad check off the business you might be able to go after that. Not sure. Ask a local atty.
Agree that writing a bad check is a criminal offense, and depending on the size of the check it could be a felony.</p>
<p>Okay. I was out of town, so could not pay attention to these things.</p>
<p>I think I only want to chase him on these bad checks totaling $11,400. So which county should I go to file the complaint? The county where the house is located or where the corporation is registered in or the county his son is living? I am not sure where he is living now, I have email conversations with him, its just hot air going back and forth. How can I serve him?</p>