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Inside this Book
Topics covered include:
- The Ohio Eviction Process
- Frequently asked questions and answers concerning an Ohio eviction
- Reasons your landlord can evict you in Ohio
- Ways to beat an Ohio eviction; defenses against an Ohio eviction
- Appealing Ohio evictions
- Illegality of Self-help evictions in Ohio
- Relevant Ohio statutory sections for evictions
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Sample Pages
3. Statutory Protections
There are three big statutory protections for evictions in Ohio. These are listed
and explained immediately below.
a. Retaliation
One thing that your landlord cannot do to you is retaliate against you for asserting your rights as a tenant. As soon as you start complaining about substandard conditions at your apartment, the landlord's natural inclination is to say that if you don't like it, get out. Move. And if you won't move voluntarily, here's an eviction notice. The Ohio Landlord/Tenant Act of 1974 gives you some protections against such landlords and it is reprinted at the end of the kit:
So what do you do if a landlord retaliates against you? The first thing is to figure out if the action that the landlord took is illegal. You are only protected under the statute if the retaliation is in the nature of an increase in rent, a decrease in services required to be provided, or a threatened eviction. Your landlord's refusal to go through with his plans to paint the garage after your complaints on other matters will probably not be sufficient. Your landlord's unfriendliness to you after a complaint will probably not be sufficient.
The second hurdle that you must get over is that you must show that the action that your landlord took was motivated by the desire to retaliate against you. It's troublesome to prove intent. Intent is by its nature a subjective, rather than an objective thing. The Judge will never be able to look into your landlord's mind and see undeniable evidence of retaliatory intent. This means that in the end it will be the Judge or the jury (if you have asked for one) who makes the call on what your landlord's mindset is. There are no guarantees when you are dealing with a subjective intent determination. You complain about a sparking outlet, the next thing you know the landlord has someone else that he wants to move into your apartment and you receive a thirty day notice terminating your month to month tenancy. The landlord argues to the Court that he just likes this new person better as a tenant.
Not knowing how the Judge is going to rule works for you and against you. It works against you because you are uncertain. Every piece of evidence might point in your direction, but you still lose because the Judge just doesn't see it your way. But it works for you as well because there is no way that the other side can tell what is going to happen either. They are in that same scary boat as you are on those same high seas. None of this means you are going to lose or going to win. Just remember that no matter how good your case is, it is, in the end, a crap shoot. So if the other side is hanging out a good decent settlement offer that is fair, take it.
It will be your burden of proof to show that your landlord was motivated by a desire to retaliate against you when he hung that three day notice of eviction on your door or increased the rent by one third. Although R.C. 5321.02(A)(1) provides that a landlord may not retaliate because of a complaint made to a government agency, the finder of fact must independently determine the reasons behind a landlord's action. A tenant must, therefore, show by a preponderance of the evidence, that the relationship between the complaint and action resulted from a retaliatory motive.
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Complete Tenant's Kit
Complete tenant's kit - which includes
1. Ohio Renter's Rights: How to take on your landlord;
2. Guide to getting out of your lease;
3. Tenant's Guide to Fighting an Eviction;
4. How to make the best case to get your security deposit back;
5. How to get your landlord to make repairs;
6. How to deal with noisy neighbors;
7. Landlord and Tenant's Guide to Understanding Lease Provisions;
8. A free subscription to our bi-monthly newsletter on Ohio landlord tenant law;
all for only $19.95, for a savings of over $26.00 when compared with the price of buying all products separately
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