There are a lot of laws that supposedly defend tenants, but really the deck is stacked in favor of property owners. (And if you haven't heard already, the legal system's design favors whoever pays the most money to win, which is why so many innocent people would rather pay than go to court.) This probably isn't obvious until after you've already been evicted, but you may discover the following: The court commissioners are jaded from hearing people lie to them all the time. The attorneys at the free legal clinic at the courthouse don't even get an hour to prepare your case at the show-cause hearing and probably won't be able to help you to prepare a shred of evidence in your favor. The police don't even know that they are enforce the "wrongful eviction clause" of the "Just Cause Eviction Ordinance" and will even deny that they do when presented with a copy of the part of the municipal code that says that they do so. Therefore, you will need to hire a professional with years in the business who can stand up to the "bottom feeders of the legal system" that often represent property owners that sometimes use sleazy tricks to win cases. David Leen knows more about this obscure area of law than perhaps anyone else in the legal system in Seattle.
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