Washington Landlord Tenant Law

Archive for May, 2006

To an attorney, fees and costs are not synonymous. Fees are what the attorney charges for legal services. Costs are the out of pocket expenses attributable to a particular client’s case – court filing fees or legal courier charges, for example.

The upshot is when getting a quote from an attorney for eviction – or any other legal service – make sure you are getting a quote for both fees and costs. If the quote is for a flat rate for total “fees” – you are still responsible for costs. In an eviction the costs can equal or exceed the attorney fees. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples.

If you are getting a quote from an eviction service make sure the quote includes the attorney’s fees. It probably does not. If not, you can count on the total bill being much higher than the quote from the eviction “service”.

Seattle landlord attorney Scott Eller

Some eviction form kits do not have certain statutory language – including language that instructs the sheriff to break and enter if necessary – in the writ. As a result the writ does not authorize the sheriff to physically evict the tenant if necessary.  The sheriff may even simply return the impotent writ unserved.So, a landlord acting without an attorney using an eviction kit may win in court only to have to repeat steps to get the sheriff the legal authority needed to actually evict the tenant. An “A” for effort, but bad form.