Landlord Settlement

I had great success this week in one of the areas that has historically been the toughest to deal with, a landlord issue. Throughout my experience, I have found that landlords are much more difficult to deal with than banks on all matters regarding settling an account for less than the total amount owed. In this particular case, my client owed $130k to their old landlord who they were not leasing from any more. They had closed their doors and liquidated the business, but this outstanding debt to the landlord stayed with them. The landlord had filed a judgment against my client in the hopes that they would someday be able to collect the full amount. After reaching out to the landlord, and realizing that there was no reasoning with him, I reached out to the landlords lawyer and explained the plight of my clients.

They had lost their only means of income when the business failed, and had not been able to find jobs since. They had no personal funds because they had invested everything they had into their failed business. I clearly laid out my case to the landlords lawyer, showing him tax returns and personal financial statements reflecting the dire financial situation that my client was in, along with an offer to pay 15% of the outstanding debt over the course of two months to settle the debt in full. With a clear and logical argument as to why this was the best offer they would ever hope to get, the lawyer accepted our offer. My client will finally be able to settle out this debt and move on with his life.