Rant: DIY vs lawyer for a simple eviction notice cost me $800 more

I tried handling a tenant eviction myself last spring in Edmonton. Saved maybe $300 on the lawyer fee but messed up the notice format and timeline. The tenant fought it and I had to start over from scratch. By the time I got it right and paid the lawyer to fix it, I was out $1,100 total instead of $300. Has anyone else learned this lesson the hard way with landlord stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

tara7003d ago

People always think they can save a buck doing shit themselves, but this landlord stuff is a perfect example of a bigger pattern. Seems like everyone these days wants to skip the expert and just wing it, whether it's fixing a car, building a deck, or filing legal papers. You end up paying double or triple when you mess up the first try, and that's if you're lucky enough to not make things worse. The worst part is the time you waste, a full month or more of rent gone because you wanted to save a few hundred bucks on a lawyer. It's the same story everywhere, people cheap out on the front end and get hammered on the back end.

riverhill2d ago

Good point @tara700, but there's another angle here too. Landlord tenant boards actually track how many DIY evictions end up contested, and in some cities it's over 40%. They basically bank on landlords messing up the first time. The real hidden cost isn't the extra lawyer fee though, it's the lost rent during those extra months and the tenant getting free legal aid to drag it out. Plus some rental insurance policies won't cover damages if you didn't follow proper legal process on the eviction itself. That's a whole different level of expensive nobody talks about.