Preserve Strong Communities with Housing Mediation

Dave and Wes ended up in mediation with the Center for Conflict Resolution when Wes filed an eviction case against Dave. Before trial, the parties were given an opportunity to meet with the mediator, where they told their respective stories.

Fifteen years ago Wes purchased a small apartment building with 4 units Southwest of Chicago. He thought the investment was particularly wise because the rent provided him with enough income to cover the mortgage and expenses. A few years after he purchased the building, Wes’s parents retired and they took over the task of managing it as a sort of hobby. In return, Wes gave them a small monthly stipend which they used for travel and out-of-the-ordinary expenses.

Dave had been renting an apartment in Wes’s building for the past 8 years. He worked from home and loved the apartment and the neighborhood. He also had an exceptional relationship with Wes’s parents, who he thought took great care of the building and the tenants. Over the past 6 months, Dave noticed that he hadn’t seen Wes’s parents, the Landlords, as he thought of them, very much and one day he received a notice taped to his door that they would no longer be collecting rent in person, but that Dave should mail it to an address he had never heard of before.

Dave was concerned about sending his checks to an unknown address, so he phoned the Landlords, left a message, and a few days later Wes called him back. Wes had explained that his parents did not own the building, that it was his and that they were in deteriorating health and were no longer helping with the care of the building. Dave agreed to send the checks for rent to Wes, but requested that Wes make a few outstanding repairs to his apartment. Primarily, Dave wanted his doorbell fixed.

Wes never repaired the doorbell. Dave never sent his rent check. Two months later the men were sitting in mediation.

After hearing the men’s stories, the mediator began to inquire about what was important to both men. She learned that Dave really needed to have a functioning doorbell - he worked from home and needed to receive deliveries, but had been missing packages because there was no way for the delivery person to leave them. Furthermore, Dave felt disrespected by Wes’s unwillingness to make the repair. He also learned that Wes was feeling overburdened with the work of managing the building and that his parents’ failing health was distracting for him. Although he’d owned the building for many years, Wes had not been that involved and the tenants had not been receptive to his sudden appearance and apparent reluctance to make repairs. Additionally, the doorbell repair was a costly project that would require installation of a new intercom system and Wes was not able to make that investment in the building.

In the end, Wes agreed to research alternative doorbells which would provide Dave with the access to deliveries that he needed. Dave agreed to pay the past due rent and Wes forgave any outstanding late fees. Both parties agreed that the circumstance had been better when Wes’s parents were managing the building, but recognized that they would need to work with each other moving forward. The mediation gave them the opportunity to restart their relationship as landlord and tenant and opened communication between them.

At first, the case appeared to be a typical landlord-tenant dispute: The tenant, Debra, had a one year lease that had expired and the landlord, Chris, was seeking to evict her. Through conversation, the mediator learned that Debra and Chris were siblings, and that the house Debra was living in was the family home they were both raised in. The house had been owned by their father, who had died without a will. At some point, the siblings had agreed that the house would be put in Chris’s name, but that Debra would live there and pay rent. When the lease was up, Debra refused to leave and Chris sued her in eviction court.

Chris’s needs were largely financial. He had been paying nearly all the expenses generated by the home since their father’s death, and his sister’s rent payments had been erratic. He wanted to sell the house because it had become a burden. He believed he had bent over backwards to help his sister financially, but could no longer afford to burden his family by continuing to do so. Debra, on the other hand, was a single mother of three struggling financially and had a strong emotional attachment to the family home. She was attempting to get financing to purchase the home from her brother for $90,000, which Chris said was below the $110,000 market value of the home.

The mediator helped Chris and Debra talk through the issues and arrive at an agreement in which a judgment of possession was entered, but enforcement of that judgment was stayed for approximately 70 days. Debra agreed to pay rent during that time, and Chris agreed that if she got the necessary financing and paid the $90,000 purchase price the judgment of possession would be vacated. Debra agreed to move out if she could not secure financing by the agreed upon deadline. Debra and Chris came into the mediation with a lot of anger and resentment toward each other. The siblings were given time to express their concerns, develop greater understanding of what was happening for the other, and problem-solve together. By the end of the process they were laughing and smiling with each other.