When the court date is scheduled, make sure youarrive early. Get there on time, because the lessee will show up as well, and you guys will have some minutes to talk and probably settle your matter.  

  If you can work something out right there, some kind of permanent agreement, you then would enter the court hearing room in front of the judge and you basically would say to the judge that you’ve settled the problems. The judge will essentially document the worked out agreement. Several courts enableyou to go to what’s called arbitration, and you would then have a court appointed arbitrator – not a judge, decide your case. An arbitrator is someone who will sit between the two of you and willessentially help you come to an agreement.    

Then pretty often, depending on the petition drafted by your long island evictions lawyer, they might not show up at all. Perhaps about 40 to 50% of tenants never show up to court. Why? I have no idea, but tenants fail to appear often. In that situation, more than likely, unless you really, really screwed up – which I’ve done – the judge will grant you everything you’re searching for automatically.

    Now, if you go in there and your lease is not up to date or signed, or if you’ve done something procedurally incorrect, the judge will not award you that possession and that judgment at that point, which means you probably screwed something up quite good.  

  Be Forthright to the judge. That’s the way the typical case works best. When you’re in front of a judge, I tell you and Iadvise this highly, be extremely forthright, but don’t answer any questions the judge doesn’t ask. One of the things I see all the time from young or new landlords is they’ll suddenly justbegin rambling on, speaking about this and that and the judge hasn’t even really asked that much.  

They’ll say something, and then all of the sudden the judge will grip onto it, and they’ll say, “What did you just say?” Then boom, abruptly you said something you didn’t mean to to say and you’ll create some troubles for yourself. When you’re in court concerning the new york state eviction  process, be very polite, very courteous, and answer only what the judge asks you.    

If he asks you your name, “My name is Mike Lautensack.” That’s it. Shut your mouth. Don’t talk. You don’t need to startrambling at that point. Answer the question, but that’s all you do. If you take that philosophy it will assist you tremendously in a court hearing.  

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