Ms. Landlord and Mrs. Tenant were very good friends in college. Ms. Landlord owned a five bedroom home near FSU's campus and agreed to rent a room to Mrs. Tenant. After a year of this arrangement Ms. Landlord decided to sell the home. Mrs. Tenant offered to enter into a lease/purchase contract whereby Mrs. Tenant would lease the home for five years with the option of purchasing it at the end of five years at a price yet to be determined.
Ms. Landlord agreed and leased the home to Mrs. Tenant. During the term of the lease Mrs. Tenant married and had two children who all lived in the home. About three years into the lease, Ms. Landlord's funds ran out and she decided to move back into the home with Mrs. Tenant and her family. Without any notice to Mrs. Tenant, Ms. Landlord just showed up one day, moved Mrs. Tenant's children's furniture out of one of the rooms, replaced the children's furniture with her own and moved back into the house. You should have seen the look on the Judge's face when he heard this.
Mrs. Tenant somehow didn't realize that a landlord cannot just move back into the house whenever she wants. Instead of throwing Ms. Landlord out, Mrs. Tenant decided to cut the amount of rent she was paying in half. When Ms. Landlord got the reduced rent check she sued Mrs. Tenant to have her evicted. Mrs. Tenant countersued Ms. Landlord to have her evicted. The whole scenario was nuts.
In the end, the Judge rendered a Solomonlike verdict evicting both the Tenant and the Landlord. The Landlord was evicted immediately because she should never have been there in the first place. The Tenant is to be out by the end of the month at which time the Landlord can move back in. A perfectly unhappy solution to both parties.
Legal Advice
No legal advice on this one. If you are crazy enough to get caught up in this type of scenario there is really no telling what a Judge will do. I do think he made the right decision though.
