State Specific Question About: NORTH CAROLINA (NC)

Do you own this property personally or in an LLC/Corp? In my state you have to have an attorney unless you own the property personally.

As WMH and James have suggested, if you own the property yourself, you have every legal right to represent yourself in court. That doesn't mean you won't mess it up, and I suspect that you did.

Here are my usual instructions for finding a good attorney:

I would recommend that you go to your local Landlord-Tenant court and sit in and observe. You will notice that there are a few attorneys who seem to know the court personnel (bailiff and clerk) and are on good terms with them. The judge will often know them by name and treat them with respect. (The judge should treat all of the attorneys with respect, but sometimes you can tell which ones he really does respect.) They will be well prepared and present their cases well. They might have several cases before the court that day. These are eviction specialists.

There will also be some attorneys who are competent, but who do not seem to be in their “home court.” These might be eviction specialists who are normally in some other courthouse (for example, an attorney who normally works the Van Nuys courthouse, but who is appearing in Norwalk), or they could be attorneys who don’t specialize in evictions but who are good at whatever they do.

You will also see some attorneys who fumble about, who are not prepared and who do a poor job. (You have to learn to distinguish between an incompetent guy who is fumbling around, and a very competent guy who is handling 20 things at once. But you should be able to tell the difference easily.)

Watch, learn, and ask the ones who you think are well suited for your needs for a business card. Maybe you need an eviction specialist; maybe you need a general all-around attorney. Either way, get cards from the people who impress you and ask if you call them later to talk. Remember, the attorney might be up to his eyebrows at that time — he might have several clients in the courtroom and hallway that he needs to reassure and discuss settlement with, witnesses he needs to talk with, tenants he needs to talk with (has to show them his exhibits before the hearing, needs to talk possible settlement with them, needs to get signatures on documents, needs to write up the Court’s order, ...). So this is likely not a good time for him to talk to you about your problem.

Then, call the ones you liked, and hire one of them.

Thanks for all your reply. I took a tenant to court for failure to pay rent and she is appealling the decision of the magistrate that awarded me the money and eviction. She got hurt on her job and is unable to pay all her rent. I was awarded 1600,00 dollars.

AH! I get it. When she appealed, did she pay the monies due to the court?

Macie, you are lucky that the Court allows you to represent your LLC in Small Claims and/or Eviction Court.

Go back into the court and watch, get the names of some of the attorneys.

I know if hurts to pay lawyers, but it is a cost of doing business in the name of an LLC.