THIS WHOLE FACEBOOK PAGE SERVES TWO PURPOSES: 1. IT ALLOWS ME TO VENT. 2.

IT MIGHT SERVE AS A LESSON FOR OTHERS WHO ARE GOING THROUGH SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES. IF IN DOUBT AS TO THE VALIDITY OF ANY OF THE STATEMENTS MADE IN THIS DOCUMENT, I ENCOURAGE YOU TO REFER TO THE OTHER DOCUMENT POSTED ON FACEBOOK AS BACK-UP. IT CONTAINS THE ENTIRE EMAIL COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MYSELF LANDLORD SAHAR SHAHIN (SS), TENANT JAMILA JACKSON (JJ) AND MY AGENT (EB). THE EMAIL HISTORY IN THAT OTHER DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN DETAIL, WHICH MAKES IT EXCRUCIATINGLY BORING TO READ. ITS ONLY MEANT TO BE SHARED AS PROOF THAT ALL MY STATEMENTS ARE CORRECT AND THAT IM NOT BEING SLANDEROUS OR LIBELOUS TO JAMILA JACKSON. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late 2010, I had to leave the US and move to Egypt for an indefinite amount of time. I wanted to rent out my house while I was gone and use the rent money to pay the mortgage. I moved all my furniture and belongings into a storage space and found an agent to rent out my house and manage the property while I was away. In November 2010, Jamila Jackson applied as a tenant. Her credit score was not good, but her current landlord provided a good reference, saying that she had been late with the rent twice. I decided that a decent rental history was good enough for me. She negotiated down the rent from $1490 to $1400. She negotiated away a pet deposit. She negotiated that the security deposit be paid in 3 installments. She negotiated many little repairs and improvements in the house, including a backyard fence for her dog. In order to get off on the right foot and build good faith, I agreed to all these demands and my agent managed to acquire an invisible fence to serve the purpose needed. The cost was $280 for this item alone. It was never used. And it was not left behind after Jamila left the premises. Once she paid the first installment of the security deposit ($500) and received the key and moved in, she never paid a cent toward the rest of the security deposit. JANUARY 2011 The first months rent was paid to my agent directly for his commission. The first installment of the security deposit was paid and she received the key. This was the only trouble-free month. FEBRUARY 2011 By the 9th, there was no deposit. My agent sent her an email to prompt her and found out that she didnt have the bank account information. Once she had it, she made a deposit on the 10th. But there was no deposit towards the security deposit and $255 were deducted for the cost of her changing the locks on the house.

A tense exchange between her and my agent ensued because we had not had a clear agreement that she could change the locks and charge me for it by deducting from the rent. Also, he told her that not knowing the bank account info was no excuse for not paying the rent and she should have sought this information. Within their exchanges, my agent said If you are having money problems and this is your way of trying to
avoid paying the rent, that would not be fair because I did ask you many times if you are sure you will be able to pay the rent.

Jamilas reply was Please note that there has not been and will not be any problem with paying the rent timely but within the same email, she also stated Unfortunately I am not currently in the financial position to make
an additional contribution to the security deposit at this time, but I fully intend to reach the requested amount in the near future. Fortunately, the delay in reaching the full security deposit will not effect Sahar financially, being that Maryland law requires that the security deposit be placed in an interest bearing account during the entire term of the Lease. I appreciate your patience as I gather the additional funds.

And thus began a running tab with Jamila. MARCH 2011

The rent was paid. Not on time, but not late enough to incur late charges. No payment was made towards the security deposit. APRIL 2011 th No rent was paid until I noticed the lack of deposit by April 27 and sent Jamila an email inquiring. Two days later, she made a deposit for one month. Then the following day, she responded to my email saying that she thought I had paid April's rent in late March, but I just went back and reviewed my bank records,and clearly I didnt...So embarressing!! Then she asked that the April rent be paid in installments of $200 / month. And asked that the deposit she had just st made be counted towards May. (This would have been the only month for which she paid before the 1 ). I agreed to the installment plan, and the running tab began to get more complicated. MAY 2011 She paid 1 installment of $200 for Aprils rent. And that was the last payment made for April rent. The subject was dropped by her after that. JUNE 2011 th She hadnt paid the rent by the 10 of June and was unresponsive to emails. I added a late fee for the month, and I told her that if she continued to be late with payments, I wouldnt renew her lease the following year. I explained how her debt was snowballing and that I couldnt do business with her in this way. I began to send Jamila a schedule of payments that would enable her to catch up. This schedule was to be modified by me every month, getting more complicated. Eventually, she responded promising payment by the 14 and said it was premature to be discussing the lease renewal.
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Eventually, the June rent was paid on the 15 , without the late fee (which was never paid for any month). JULY 2011 No rent was paid for July. (No catch-up on previous amounts either). On July 11 , I sent her another update, including the late fee for July rent. Her response was Thank you for the reminder. I had hoped that I would have the full rent payment for you before the 10th, but unfortunately that has not happened. I will continue to do my best to get the rent to you in the very near future, hopefully in the next couple of days. Thank you for your continued patience. July rent was never paid. AUGUST 2011 August rent was never paid either. I began figuring out my travel plans back to the US to start eviction proceedings. But on August 3 , I received notice from Jamila that she was moving out to avoid further debt. I agreed to this but asked her to continue to try to pay back what she owed up to that point. No response on that point from Jamila. Then she withdrew her notice to evict and said her plans to move out had fallen through. Then she asked that rent be lowered from $1400 to $800. I refused to do that. She asked if it was ok to sub-let the basement to assist with the cost of rent, but I refused that option also. Finally, she was suddenly optimistic about making future rent payments and staying. She did not really present a payment plan for what she owed up to that point, but claimed that she would be paying September rent (and future rent) on time. I decided that if she did pay September rent, I would delay my trip for a month because the timing was difficult for me. So I waited on that. SEPTEMBER 2011 th September 10 , Jay sent an email saying she lost my bank account info. I sent the info to her. Two days later, I saw no deposit. I wrote her an email telling her this is not going to work. She claimed she hadnt seen my response email with the account info and she promised to deposit the rent today. But she paid it two days later, without late fee. I informed her that I was making a trip to the US in October and that we would discuss the lease while I was there. OCTOBER 2011 th October 7 , she told me shed pay half the rent ($700) on Monday and the rest within a couple of weeks. She was late with the half, and she never paid the rest or addressed it. But by then I was already scheduled to return to the US to deal with it. While in the US, she wanted the washing machine fixed, so I went to the house to take care of it. This was the only time we met face to face. No mention was made of ANY of the late payments included the current month of October. NOVEMBER 2011
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By November 4 , Jamila had not paid November rent and she received the court order for payment or repossession of the house. She was surprised and tried to convince me that if I let her stay, she would pay the future rent in full and on time. She explained that she was only trying to take care of her family and wasnt spending the rent money on frivolous things but never explained why this had to be my burden or why it was important to stay in a 3-bedroom house when she lived alone with her daughter and could look for a cheaper option. When she asked me why I hadnt told her about the court process when I had met her face to face, my response was as follows: The very short answer to your question is that based on our history and your past behavior, I'm now operating in crisis mode with an expectation of the worst. The more information I give you, the more exposed I am. Basically, the eviction process is a long one, which gives you time and all the "heads up" you need to make things right and avoid eviction. But unfortunately for me, it also gives you time to make things much much worse. And I'm expecting the worst right now. So I have no incentive to give you more notice than you already have. In fact, I am surprised that you only received the notice yesterday. I assumed that you didn't follow up and make good on your promise to pay the rest of October "in a few weeks" and you didn't mention a THING about your plans for payment to me when we met, and you ignored my update about November rent due and haven't paid it yet, and you walked away from the opportunity to pay down $300 off your massive debt to me when the plumber fixed the washing machine (making me have to drive back up to MD from VA the next day to pay him myself)....etc. I assumed that all this was happening because you already knew about the eviction and didn't have any incentive to try or even pretend to try. I understand now that this was all just you being you. In Jamilas response to me, she made 2 contradicting remarks. 1. Ive always had an incentive to pay. I did before I got the notice and I do now. and 2. I dont want to make things much much worse for you or myself, however, if you choose to move forward with the eviction process, I will have no other option but to hold onto any future rent to cover the cost of relocating. DECEMBER 2011 The rest of the story is very predictable. I had offered to drop the court case if she moved out before the court date of November 16 . She hadnt moved out, and she didnt show up for court and I got my ruling for re-possession of the house. I had offered to let her pay back what she owed at her own schedule of payment and I urged her to make it realistic and stick to it. Otherwise, I would pursue the money legally. She didnt do that either. And for the remaining couple of months she stayed in the house, she didnt pay a dime. JANUARY 2012 nd On January 2 , I was back in Egypt and wanted to find out if she had vacated the house yet. So I asked her Jamila, what is the status of things. Her response was: The status of what? Oh, you must be talking about my weight loss. Well, I've lost about 30 lbs, but I gained back 10 over the holidays. I just returned to the gym yesterday, so hopefully I'll be back on the right track soon! Thanks for asking!
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That was my cue to stop communicating with her directly. I had my agent keep an eye out for signs that shed moved out. Finally, in mid-January, she had left. And as expected, she left behind a mess, trash and food rotting in the fridge. May 2012 I received a judgement from the court for over $8,000 in unpaid rent and late fees. This did not cover about $3000 in legal expenses or the cost of travel from Egypt to handle the eviction, etc. In other words, Jamila cost me much much more than $8,000. But that was the amount I managed to get my judgement for. Not that I ever expected to see that moneybut I couldnt let her walk away consequence-free. The consequences: In July, Jamila declared bankruptcy as expected. This ended my ability to pursue her legally. That ends that.