Source: https://browardlandlord.wordpress.com/category/landlord-tenant/requirement-to-post-rent-into-court-registry/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:19:27+00:00

Document:
Fact that tenant was no longer in possession of premises did not render tenant’s appeal of eviction moot. Trial court erred failing to construe Tenant’s answer and motion as a motion to determine rent and in granting judgment of possession and costs without conducting a rent determination hearing.
Tenant notified the landlord of a rodent infestation. When the landlord failed to act, tenant spent $50.00 on rodent treatment and deducted the amount from his February rent, paying $450.00 out of the $500 rent due. The landlord accepted the payment and notified the tenant he was short $50.00. Then on February 5th, the landlord filed an eviction for holdover alleging he had served the tenant a notice of non-renewal on January 13, effective January 31, despite having accepted a February rent payment.
On February 11, the tenant filed an “Answer/Request Hearing” requesting that the court deny the eviction and argued that “the management company should not be able to hold my security deposit funds, and rent funds in contempt with the court system.” The Tenant deposited $500 for his March rent in the court registry. On March 19, the trial court entered an Order Striking Answer and Entry of Default, and judgment for possession and $225 costs, which was “[b]ased upon Defendant’s failure to pay necessary monies into the Court Registry or to file an appropriate motion to determine the amount of rent to be paid into the Court Registry . . . .” The tenant appealed.
The landlord argued the appeal should be dismissed as moot because the tenant had, by then, been evicted. The appellate court ruled that ‘[m]ootness does not destroy an appellate court’s jurisdiction . . . if ‘collateral legal consequences that affect the rights of a party flow from the issue to be determined.’ ” Id. (quoting Godwin, 193 So. 2d at 212) (alteration added). A recent opinion from another Eleventh Judicial Circuit appellate panel determined that “ceasing to reside in [an] apartment does not moot an appeal from an eviction judgment,” since an eviction judgment “may cause collateral consequences such as a negative credit history.” Daniels v. Miami Beverly, Case No. 14-283 AP (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Aug. 25, 2017) [25 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 587c]. In Schweickert, the Fifth DCA found that a case was not rendered moot when a request for attorney’s fees remained pending. Schweickert, 193 So. 3d at 1079. Likewise, the instant case is not moot while the Appellant remains liable for the $225 cost award.
The appellate court noted that §83.60 Florida Statutes “Defenses to action for rent or possession” provides the tenant has three options to avoid a default: “[a] tenant may: (1) assert payment as a defense; (2) deposit the accrued rent as alleged in the Complaint; or (3) file a motion to determine the amount of rent.” Green v. Liberty City Cmty. Economic Dev. Corp., 21 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 122a (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Nov. 21, 2013).
The appellate court noted that it would review requests by tenants liberally as motions to determine rent, including requests included in an answer instead of being filed as a separate pleading. See Daniels v Miami Beverly, Case No. 14-283 AP (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Aug. 25, 2017) [25 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 587c]; Harvey v. Campton Assoc., 22 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 48a (Fla. 11th Cir. Ct. Apr. 15, 2013). In the instant case, like in the Daniels case, the tenant placed his request in writing, stated the reasons why he challenged the rent amount, and indicated that he wanted a hearing. In Daniels, the court found that such a request was sufficient for an unrepresented tenant to satisfy the condition that the tenant may file a motion to determine rent in order to avoid a default. Likewise, the tenant in the instant case, who was unrepresented at the time that he filed his “Answer/Request Hearing,” adequately moved to determine rent, so that default should not have been entered against him. Thus the appellate court reversed the trial courts order striking tenant’s answer granting the eviction and judgment for costs, and further awarded tenant costs and fees for the appeal. The case was remanded to the trial court to conduct a rent determination hearing.
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In an eviction for non-payment of rent, the tenant defended with a motion to determine rent. The motion to determine rent was not based on an allegation that the amount claimed by the landlord was incorrect, but upon the landlord’s failure to maintain the premises. The court noted that in order for the tenant to challenge the amount of rent due because of landlord’s failure to maintain the premises, the tenant must first have sent the landlord a seven day notice. The notice must be in writing, giving the landlord seven days to cure. Landlords may rely on written notice of complaints of a specific nature, but must then act within seven days to accomplish compliance with the statute. The tenant is required to issue a seven day notice in order to commence a process wherein the tenant may withhold rent payments. The tenant ,may not take matters into his own hands and resort to the self-help of unilaterally withholding rent payments without property notice. Determining that a reduction in rent registry payments could be permitted where no statutory seven day notice was delivered merely delays the necessary inevitable frustration of the tenant’s defense as well as underlying basis for such a reduction. Thus the tenant was ordered to deposit the full amount of the rent into the court registry.
Any allegation of ownership by tenant in an eviction action requires an evidentiary hearing.
Petitioner had been living in a house for over five years under a lease-option contract which had expired four years ago under which he claimed to have made a $6000 deposit toward the purchase as well as many improvements. Respondent filed an eviction for non-payment of rent, to which petitioner responded with a motion to determine rent and a motion to dismiss based on a claim of ownership under the lease option.. The county court granted the eviction without hearing. Petitioners appealed (which was treated as a petition for a writ of certiori, as non-final orders from County Court are not directly appealable to Circuit Court).
(2) Occupancy under a contract of sale of a dwelling unit or the property of which it is a part in which the buyer has paid at least 12 months’ rent or in which the buyer has paid at least 1 month’s rent and a deposit of at least 5 percent of the purchase price of the property.
Where a tenant makes a claim of ownership in a landlord’s action for possession, a court errs by ordering an eviction or by ordering rent to be deposited with the court registry without holding a hearing on the tenant’s assertion. Even though the lease option had expired on its face in 2010, the court ruled that real estate contracts, under certain circumstances, may be subject to oral modification or extension, as was alleged here. Therefore the County Court erred by not holding an evidentiary hearing on the claim of ownership.
Landlord filed a complaint naming the defendant only in the case caption, whereas an unrelated person is named as the tenant in body of the complaint. Defendant was defaulted for failing to post the rent into the court registry and appealed.
The court explained that because a default admits liability only as claimed in the pleading, no liability was stated against Defendant. While §83.60(2), Florida Statutes requires the deposit of rent claimed into the registry as a condition to raising any defense other than payment, the court does not consider Defendant’s defense as contemplated §83.60(2), Fla. Stat., because he was never legally required to raise a defense. Put another way, Defendant’s challenge would normally be the subject of a motion to dismiss rather than an affirmative defense.
A landlord filed an eviction for non-payment of rent. The tenant defended on the basis of landlord’s failure to maintain the premises and filed a motion for rent determination. Nevertheless, the court ordered the tenant to deposit the amount claimed of $1550.00 into the court registry without conducting a rent determination hearing. When the tenant did not make the deposit, the landlord filed for a default judgment of eviction which was granted.
The tenant filed an appeal . The appellate court ruled that even though the court did not conduct a rent determination hearing, once it ordered the tenant to pay a certain amount, §83.60(2), Fla. Stat., required the entry of a default judgment if that amount was not paid.
LARRY J. HAMPTON, Appellant, v. 2636 5TH STREET SOUTH LAND TRUST ASSET PRESERVATION TRUST SERVICES, INC., Appellee. Circuit Court, 6th Judicial Circuit (Appellate) in and for Pinellas County. Case No. 14-000065AP-88B. UCN 522014AP000065XXXXCV. February 24, 2015. 22 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 780a.
Who gets the funds in the court registry ?
Landlord filed an eviction complaint for possession only based on non-payment of rent. The three day notice indicated that it was served after the stated payment due date (the landlord had probably reversed the date served and the date due). The tenant posted the rent claimed, requested a rent determination hearing based on landlord’s failure to perform repairs demanded on a seven day notice, and moved to dismiss based on the defective three day notice. As another month went by, tenant posted the next month’s rent into the court registry pursuant to court order. Then landlord filed a motion for the funds in the court registry to be distributed to him. Before that motion was heard, the court granted tenant’s motion to dismiss for the defective three day notice.
At the post dismissal hearing to disburse funds, the court awarded part of the deposit back to the tenant, presumably as a reduction in rent for landlord’s failure to repair, and awarded the rest of the funds to the landlord.
The tenant appealed, and lost in the circuit court. The tenant appealed to the 4th District Court of Appeals and won. The appellate court ruled that the trial court lost jurisdiction upon the dismissal. As the landlord had not filed a damages count, the court did not have jurisdiction to decide the dispute over who was entitled to the funds in the court registry. Therefore all of the funds in the court registry must be returned to the tenant. The court made it clear that if the landlord had included a damages count, the court could have awarded the landlord the funds in the court registry, even though the landlord lost on the possession count. The court further noted, that because the law changed in 2013, a defective three day notice would no longer result in a dismissal. Under the new law, the landlord is now allowed to issued a new three day notice and file an amended complaint for eviction.
Noimbie v. Harvey (Fla. App., 2014) 4th DCA.
Plaintiff filed an eviction for non-payment of rent and obtained a writ of possession after defendant failed to post the amount claimed into the court registry. Defendant vacated, but later defended against the damages count, alleging that he was not a tenant but a buyer under an oral installment sales contract. The evidence showed that Defendant paid five monthly payments of $461.05 and then stopped making payments because the parties could not agree on a written contract. The court ruled that purchase contracts are not governed by Florida Statute Chapter 83, the landlord tenant act. An installment sale is considered to be a mortgage under Florida Statute 697.01, which states “All conveyances, obligations conditioned or defeasible, bills of sale or other instruments in writing conveying or selling property, either real or personal, for the purpose, or with the intention of securing the payment of money, whether such instrument be from a debtor to the creditor or from the debtor to some third person in trust for the creditor, shall be deemed and held mortgages, and shall be subject to the same rules of foreclosure and to the same regulations, restraints and forms as are prescribed in relation to mortgages”. Consequently, the court ruled that the County Court did not have jurisdiction to hear an eviction which should have been filed in Circuit Court as a foreclosure. As there was no proper cause of action for eviction, there was no requirement for the defendant to post “rent” into the court registry. The writ and and order of possession were quashed, and the court ordered possession of the premises restored to the defendant.

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