HOUSTON – Some tenants at Cabo San Lucas who were in jeopardy of being kicked out can now sleep at home tonight following a legal battle that began last month.
It started out with over 100 families facing evictions from the southeast Houston apartment complex on August 9th, but litigators here at Lone Star Legal Aid fought to ensure that didn’t happen.
Even though another victory was won Tuesday, they say the battle is far from over.
For now, the remaining 13 households that were facing evictions can stay in their units at the complex we’ve reported on multiple times due to claims of dilapidated conditions.
“Well, the case has been dismissed. From our understanding of it, it seems that Cabo purged themselves on the stand,” said Paul Deosaran. He is one of the tenants who was being evicted for claims of nonpayment of rent.
Dana Karni, Litigation Director with Lone Star Legal Aid representing the residents, says some of the tenants tried to pay their rent but the new landlord wouldn’t accept it and gave them a 3-day notice to vacate. Karni says under law, it should’ve been a 30-day notice since the property received federal subsidies. Karni believes the landlord is trying to begin capital improvements to the property which would be easier without tenants.
“After the judge ruled in our favor, Cabo San Lucas decided to go ahead and nonsuit or dismiss the rest of our case,” Karni said.
She adds that in a pleading filed on Friday, the complex claimed that 30-day notices to vacate were given to the tenants, but then today it was stated that that was a mistake.
“This is exactly the benefit of having a right to counsel. We like to see when tenants have an attorney. The benefit of one tenant having an attorney actually has a snowball effect,” Karni said.
Even though the tenants can celebrate a victory by not being forced out of their homes right now, they think it will be short-lived.
“We’ll probably end up in court again because the landlord is not going to stop on this. So what the residents are requesting is any assistance in being able to relocate would be a definite plus for us,” Deosaran said.
We tried to get a comment from the attorney representing Cabo San Lucas for comment but have not heard back.