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Orlando: Few things inspire attendees at the 2006 Int’l Builders Show to come running better than sessions on improving the bottom line or a free-lunch event. Advice on how members of the housing industry can stay out of court, however, is about as close as a topic gets. Attorneys invited to an IBS panel on the topic say the secret to staying out of court is “planning, planning, planning.” And no matter how much is needed, it is nearly always worth it.
Brenda Rodmacher, of California’s Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman, spends much of her time speaking directly to homebuilders, but her words resonate just as well with real estate managers.
She says staying out of court is important because of three other simple words: “cost, cost, cost.”
There is a cost to your reputation if a public dispute ensues; there is a cost in dealing with lengthy formal litigation because “time is money;” and there is a cost to paying for representation.
Rodmacher lists some easier ways to handle situations than waiting for an issue to go to civil court:
- Wear the white hat,” and make an honest attempt to fix problems at a property quickly. If the dispute ends up in court, it always helps to look like the good guy.
- Suggest some type of arbitration if there is a hint about a potential lawsuit. Far more creative, and usually lenient, resolutions are allowed outside of a formal court than when in front of a judge.
- Train employees involved with a property to handle disputes properly.
- Know what is going on in the neighborhood of your property. How can it hurt to be plugged in to what is occuring?
Florida attorney Andy Gold says one critical “don’t” is writing about a dispute freely over e-mail.
“Most of you don’t think of e-mails as a letter. You’ll say anything,” Gold says. “They ARE letters. They are discoverable [in a court proceeding].”
Gold says, in cases when an off-color e-mail is introduced in court, it’s almost always bad for the defendant (property owner/landlord/homebuilder/etc.).
Just because the delete button has been pushed doesn’t mean the information a person just typed is gone. Secrecy is illusive when it comes to e-mail. Gold says there’s an entire industry of computer forensics to recover information from someone’s hard drive.
Think about it: Do you really want to lose a large chunk of money in a tenant lawsuit because you lobbed some dastardly insults about a client in an e-mail you wrote to a buddy?
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