Kansas Landlord And Tenant Legal Questions

 The landlord is required to serve a three day notice allowing you to pay any unpaid rent to continue the rental. If you  paid the rent in full prior to the end of the three day notice, no evection can be filed. If any rent remained and paid the end of the three day notice, and eviction  can be filed.  You have some defenses to the evection called constructive evection. When the property is uninhabitable due to a defect, you are not required to pay rent during the time you cannot live in the property. If you continue to live in the property  in spite of the defects, do you have waived your claim of constructive evection. You are still entitled to claim damages suffered due to the defects. This could be the time and expense of heating water, showering elsewhere, or medical expenses per due to the  Black mold. If fiction is filed, you should appear in court and contest the evection. The court will schedule a trial. This will give you additional time to move, and allow you to have your day in court on the defects.... Read More

Kathleen- A tenant has possession of the property until they move out, voluntarily or involuntarily by eviction. Even though the lease term ends you have no right to possession until the tenant moves out. If the tenant remains in possession on March 16, your only option is eviction by court process. You may not enter , change the lock nor remove tenants possession without court order. If the tenant abandons the property for 14 days you may enter the property inventory the possessions and store them. You must publish a notice of intended disposal and mail the notice to tenants last known address. You can the sell give away or throw away the possessions. There are time frames for notice and disposal. If the tenant is evicted by court process and leaves possessions behind you publish the same notice and dispose of the possessions. All of this may delay your construction. Without publishing the notice ans waiting out the time you cannot destroy the tenants possessions. ... Read More

Hi James,   KSA5 8-2550 allows you to recover the security deposit and a penalty of one and a half times the security deposit.  the Landlord has a duty to notify you of any amout deducted from your security deposit and the reason for the deduction within 30 days of the termination date.  in your case the landlord has failed to notify you of the reason for any deduction.  you are owed at least $450 and possible $552 based on their acounting.  in addition you are owed a penaly of at least $675 and at most $828.  you cannot recover attorney fees in a suit against a landlord.  i can represent you to send a demand letter and negotiate a return of the deposit and penalty on a 1/3 contingency fee, but will not file suit as the amount is too small.  your best option is to go to small claims court.... Read More