Landlord Question and Answer Forum

Sometimes I think, l I am so so "dumb". I feel I must share and ask for your feedbacks kindly. Here is my latest awful experience in NYC dealing with a bad Tenant, Housing Courts, and some attorneys. I fell for a Tenant in NYC, who came with splendid employment and landlord recommendations, and a clear tenant screen. I called the employer who gave a marvelous referral of the tenant. I did not call his former Landlord since the tenant gave me his rent payments slips from luxury rentals LI. He was well spoken, nicely dressed, great manners, etc etc etc. Too good to be true. Was I fooled renting him a newly renovated and updated studio? It turned out the Tenant was a con artist who very well versed in the landlord/tenant law and NYC housing courts. I really do not know how the tenant did what he did. This tenant kept showing in court without an attorney and the judges kept postponing the case, while my first attorney could not argue against that and later lost the case on a technicality of rent demand "3 days vs. 5 days notice." My first attorney was full of embarrassment in front of a trail judge; but personally told me, he did not understand how he could not have made such a mistake. To make matters and my luck worse, I hired a new attorney, who due to some personal circumstances and office staff restructuring (as his explanation went) simply did not file a case right away but in 2 months. Again, we went through postponing the court dates etc, same story... Finally a relief, I we an eviction an eviction order planned for the beginning of Dec 2016. But wait, the Tenant filed an order to show cause, which by the way he lost. In NYC, you cannot evict the Tenant in late December, so we waited till mid Jan 2017 when the City Marshal finally had the time. The tenant skipped. To make this long story short, it took two attorneys and 19 months exactly to evict. He owes more than 30K and I do not know how to find him, whether to file a civil suit, if ever I would be able to collect. What makes this worse is that throughout this time, the Tenant was laughing into my face and it has felt awful to see such injustice done.