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[Landlord US-TX] Tenant appealed eviction and its dragging on. Offer a settlement?

TL;DR My tenant appealed eviction. I think I have a good chance of winning the appeal, but, by the time it's done the award will be so much the tenant will never be able to afford to pay me. Should I try to settle with him for the amount I need to break even before we get to the appeal? The tenant is extremely argumentative and cocky. He thinks he's going to win in court. I definitely don't want to give him anything that will help him do that in trying to convince him to take this settlement.

I'm evicting a tenant for staying past the lease end. He also stopped paying rent almost two months ago, before his lease ended. He also changed the locks on my house and won't change them back.

I won the initial eviction hearing, but now he has appealed. In my state that means the appeal court hears the case anew (trial de novo).

My case is pretty strong. There's a slight crack in the notice I gave to terminate the month-to-month lease. The first judge didn't seem to have a problem with it, but I also don't think my renter did a great job of digging in on it. I think I've got about a 95% chance of winning the appeal. So far, no attorneys involved.

Given that the lease allows me to double the rent after he holds over, he now owes me $6,600, minus his deposit. He'll never be able to pay that.

He's definitely acting in bad faith, telling total lies, and being dishonest.

I'm also pretty sure he's going to take me to small claims court and while I'll win, I'll have to deal with that thorn in my side.

Should I offer to settle with him? Because he's a skilled handyman, I know he's able to leave the house undamaged. Since the eviction is on appeal if we abandon it now it won't go on his record. If he leaves the house undamaged so I can apply his deposit, I could break even if he paid me $2,700 more.

My big worry is if I have to try to convince him that he's going to lose his case, I'll basically hand him a possible defense. Or even if I make this offer and he realizes there's a crack, then he works even harder to find it.

The other thing is that he's a monster. For example, during the lease he decided he didn't like a contractor who'd worked on the house before and he'd send me a dozen pictures at 1:00 a.m. of work he thought was shoddy. Now every conversation devolves into him telling me that I've already shot myself in the foot blah blah blah. Contacting him feels like poking a rabid dragon.

submitted by /u/MooseGoose82
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/wwj1kd/landlord_ustx_tenant_appealed_eviction_and_its/
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