Got my judgment

I had to file in small claims court against my roommate for failure to pay rent and a few other odds and ends. It was posted today on the internet that I won. I got all that I asked for plus court costs. I am so relieved about this.

I heard that she filed a response today however the deadline was yesterday and I was awarded a default judgment. I know I'm going to have to file against her again for July and August. But having done it once, I know how it needs to go and that there is a real chance of getting what's owed. I kind of hope that once she realizes that I'm serious about this that she will just pay July and Augusts rent. Probably wishful thinking.

Next thing is to get a roommate for the next year.

Hey! Congradulations!

Yeah! justice shall prevail! good for you, and congrats!

Risa

Way to go! That didn't take as long I as thought it would! Woo hoo.

Well I filed on 6/21 and they gave her a month to respond. Seemed like a really long month.

In some ways I feel sorry for her. She's cut herself off from everyone we jointly know or lied to them. She's told so many people that she moved up north but she never left. She has other court appearances that she's required to be here for. She's a waitress for a restaurant and my mom happened to be in there with a friend and she still works there. I don't quite understand why she cut everyone out of her life but I guess it's her choice. Collecting on this will be the next step...which might be harder than getting the judgment.

That's good news! Does that mean you didn't have to see her face to face? When I took my own former roommate to court for not paying her rent, I had to see her in person at court. The judge ordered us to try to settle things together out of court first, and her sister came up and tried to bring up all sorts of irrelevant things, such as the fact that I am usually late at cashing checks. That time, I cashed the check (that she stopped and the reason for my taking her to court) later than the first of the month because she didn't pay me until the middle of the month, and then I went into the hospital for a week starting the next day. No wonder I hadn't cashed the check! And who cares when I cashed it, as long as it was before the expiration date! Her sister heard my arguments, which I tried to direct solely to the ex-roommate and ignore the sister, and made the statement, "So you'll just split it down the middle! That's only fair!"

No, it wasn't! When we went before the judge, she tried to argue that I hadn't made her sign a statement saying she must give me 30 days' notice before leaving (that was her excuse for cancelling the check because she decided to move out right then), but I didn't even have to produce evidence that it is California law that unless there is another agreement in writing, 30 days' notice is standard. The judge immediately told her that she no ground to stand on. But she just whined, saying that she is a poor college student (who just happened to have a free ride scholarship, with a good stipend, PLUS a good TA job, something virtually no one at my school got!). The judge finally asked her what she thought she ought to pay, and she never gave him a straight answer. He quickly ruled in my favor.

The one thing I did wrong, and which I'd caution you be careful about, Heeler, is that I didn't keep close documentation of every payment she made to me. She claimed that she couldn't pay the full $600 at once because she only made $250 a month, which is ridiculous when I know what financial aid she got. So the state allowed her to pay me back in installments of $25 a month. For the first month or two, I kept careful track of each payment, scanning it into the computer to document each money order. But I got lazy, and since she seemed to be consistent with her payments, I didn't keep it up. And I probably got ripped off about $100 or so. I had stopped paying close attention to the figures, and with each payment, she included how much she had paid to date and how much was owed.

She either skipped a few payments, or the envelope was not forwarded to me after I moved. I suspect the latter because I still get some forwarded mail. I tried to ask her to mail it to my new home, but I couldn't get in touch with her anymore. I guess if I searched hard enough, I could find her details, but I have no way of proving that I didn't get that money, and I don't have the exact figures either. She evidently moved and changed her telephone number because the number doesn't work, and the address she uses on her return address is the school's address, which wouldn't be very helpful for me anyway.

So if your ex-roommate insists on paying in installments, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING really closely, and make sure you know exactly how to stay in touch with her until everything is paid back. You don't want to be cheated like I was. Now, it wouldn't be worth my trying to get the $100 back because I didn't document things clearly, so I couldn't prove that I didn't get them, and it would take some sleuthing to locate her in the first place. It's just not worth that extra headache to me now. But I do wish she hadn't gotten away with cheating me.

Collecting is not going to be left up to the roommate. I will garnish her wages, I can clean out her bank account, I can put a lien on her tax return, I'm keeping her security deposit and will be selling the belongings she left behind. If it was voluntary, going to court would have been moot.

That's good that you have the power to take payment from your former roommate. The small claims court in CA requires that the person default on payment after the first judgment and that you have to take the person back to court for non-payment before you can garnish wages or the like. I still kick myself for not being more on top of my ex-roommate's payments, but it would have been hard to locate her to sue her again, as she is intentionally hiding from me, so I can't possibly go after her again. She changed her phone and email address, so I once contacted her through Facebook's private messages to tell her to mail to my new address (which she has never done), and then she blocked me from being able to message her there either. So I'd have to do some serious research to locate her, and since I didn't do such diligent record-keeping, there's nothing I can do to her anyway, if I did find her.