At 7:12 PM -0700 20/8/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>Again, you really need to talk to a lawyer licensed in
>your state if you want to get legal advice.
>
>I can tell you in the abstract that "selective
>enforcement" is not a contract defense that I am
>familiar with, but waiver is; one might argue, if the
>contract had not been enforced in other cases that the
>tenant knew of, and that the landlord might reasonably
>expect the tenant to have known of, that the landlord
>had waived the contract's provisions with respect to
>the tenant. This is pretty dicey, though. I acn't
>imagine overcharges for windows would help as a matter
>of law with the carpet, but anything true that makes
>the other party look bad is helpful.
>
>But at this point the tenant had better talk to a
>lawyer in his home state, maybe pay him money to tell
>some lies, like R and John Thornton suggest,
>preferably before a biased judge. Be sure to
>intimidate the clerk of court's personnel, like Bill
>Bartlett suggests, because that always works so well.
Actually, in this instance, I think Wotjek's advice seems the soundest. Just don't pay and make the bastard come after you. You will be forcing the landlord to put himself and his bank balance at the mercy of a lawyer, which sane people are reluctant to do.
I'd add that you might also write a nice letter to the landlord and offer to negotiate. Make what seems like a fair offer. The sensible business decision for the landlord is to avoid the risk of legal action and settle for something less than the original request. You might do a little better if you hire a lawyer, but you might do a hell of a lot worse too, so a rational appraisal of the balance of risks suggests both parties negotiate sensibly.
And Justin, intimidating the clerks of court is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I suggested. I strongly advised any unrepresented party to court proceedings to treat court clerks as divinely inspired god-like creatures. If you have so much trouble grasping the meaning of simple things like a passage from an email message, I wouldn't trust you as far as I could kick you with the task of looking for loopholes in a contract.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas