Alexander Hansen Verbeck

I hired Alex Verbeck of Verbeck Law to help me with the eviction of a tenant. In my first conversation he assured me that it would be a very quick and cut and dry case since the tenant had lied on their rental application. This was not actually the reason I was trying to evict her, even though it was... true, but Alex said it was the easiest way to evict. He was the lawyer so I agreed. I told Alex that the lease was up in just a few months and asked him if I should just wait it out. I did not want to go to court but he assured me it was be a swift, easy process. As soon as I paid the flat fee to Alex, he never asked me for any of the information I had gathered and he was either extremely slow to respond to me or he failed to get back to me at all. By the time we were at the point of going to court he completely changed this story and suggested that instead of going to court we should instead settle with the tenant, allow them to keep living there, and drop the whole case. I would of course get no refund for his services. A month after I paid him the retainer he started to say how difficult it was to evict a tenant even if they had done everything wrong, and the courts were completely stacked against landlords and that it would be best for me to just drop the whole thing. I really couldn’t believe that he was now saying I should drop the case and I refused. By the time we actually went to court two months after the initial payment to Alex, he persuaded me to accept a deal because he said that as soon as we stood before the judge and had them agree to pay the back rent and move out we would be able to immediately get a sheriff’s order to remove them if they didn’t abide by the terms. I agreed because I thought was he was telling me was the truth. After court, for three weeks I asked Alex almost a dozen times to please send the stipulate agreement in writing so that we could sign the agreement. He kept telling me it didn’t matter because we had said it in front of the judge and it was enforceable. When the tenant failed to pay rent or leave three weeks after court, I asked Alex to proceed with removing them for violating the agreement and now the story changed again. Now it would not be possible to have them removed after all, and only then did he actually send the agreement for signatures and it was completely different from what we had agreed to in court. To top it all off he told me we were good to go with a payment plan with the tenant. He then informed me that he would be receiving the payments which I immediately said I did not EVER want him receiving any funds on my behalf. Rent was to go to me, and me alone, and furthermore not only did I not even know that he was trying to reach an agreement with them but I never agreed to any payment plan. Two weeks later and he has still not given me the money he collected from the tenant without my approval or agreement.