QUESTION
Ohio Landlord tenant small claims court action question.
Asked on Jan 30th, 2013 on Landlord and Tenant Law - Ohio
More details to this question:
I am taking a former tenant to small claims court asking for $2900 in unpaid rent, major cleanup costs and misc. property damages. My actual 'valid' bills total $3700 but in Ohio the limit for small claims is $3000. Should the judge disallow one of my 'original' bills say $500 lowering my max. potential award to $2400 can I introduce the additional bills at that time? And if I cannot, can I file a subsequent small claims action for the bills not claimed originally due to the $3000 limit? thanks for your time!
1 ANSWER
Your best option would be to claim all of the bills for $3700 at the time of filing the complaint. Although the maximum jurisdiction of small claims court is $3000, you are correct. If one of your bills is disallowed, you would not get compensated for that. And because the claim is all arising from the same transaction, you have to bring all your claims in a single lawsuit. You cannot sue once for some of the bills, and then claim the other bills in a second lawsuit. So you should claim damages in the amount of $3700, present all of the bills at your hearing, and if the judge accepts your evidence, he can award you up to $3000. If you do not claim all of the bills in your complaint, the judge could very well deny admission of those bills as evidence at your hearing. Good luck.
Answered on Feb 11th, 2013 at 12:53 PM