Tenant summoned to court again

Q. I lost my job a while back and my landlord sued me for eviction. I went to court and I agreed to leave the condominium within 21 days. The attorney for the landlord wrote up something called an Order of Possession and gave me a copy after the judge signed it. There was nothing on the order saying I had to pay the landlord anything.

A few days ago a sheriff came to my door to serve me papers. My old landlord is suing me for unpaid rent. I'm supposed to go back to court in a couple weeks.

I thought when I left court the first time I was all done. There was no talk of me paying the landlord back. He kept my security deposit which paid for some of what I owed him.

I really can't afford an attorney but I'm scared to go back to court as it looks like I didn't do a very good job the first time. Any advice you could give me would be appreciated.

A. Review the Order of Possession closely. There is a section in that preprinted order that provides for a judgment amount. If that section is left blank or there is a zero in the blank space, it is highly unlikely you owe the landlord anything.

On occasion, an Order of Possession is entered and the case is continued to determine money damages. If that occurred, a future court date should have been made part of that order. If you don't see anything like that in your order, I would presume the case was fully resolved when you appeared. The landlord would not be able to come back on a future date and make a claim for unpaid rent.

You should appear in court on the return date indicated on the summons you just received and bring the order from your prior court appearance. Your position is that the case was fully resolved when you last appeared in court and the landlord has no legal basis to bring this current action.

Q. We sold our home about four months ago. During the home inspection, the inspector noted mold in the attic. After a good deal of negotiation, we agreed to give our buyers a credit of $2,000 instead of addressing the mold problem ourselves.

Our attorney recently received a letter from the buyer's attorney stating that the mold problem is much worse than the buyers thought and that we must have known about the problem. They are asking for an additional $3,000 to clean up the mold.

Our attorney is telling us the mold issue is resolved and she does not believe they would win if they sued us. We are very concerned though and don't want to get involved in a lawsuit. Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.

A. Of course, I was not involved in the negotiation and have not reviewed any documents. However, as a general rule, I would agree with your attorney. You did not indicate exactly why the cost of the mold remediation increased 2½ times. Was the problem in the attic more severe than first thought? If that is the case, then I think any additional cost over and above the $2,000 is your buyer's problem. Now, if upon taking possession, the buyer's discovered mold in a separate location, that could be a different story. For the buyers to prevail in a lawsuit against you in this situation, they would be required to establish that the mold existed at the time of sale (likely) and that you were aware of the issue and failed to disclose the problem. This would likely be a difficult burden for the buyers to overcome.

• Send your questions to attorney Tom Resnick, 345 N. Quentin Road, Palatine, IL 60067, by email to tom@thomasresnicklaw.com or call (847) 359-8983.