PRISONER IN HIS OWN HOME

Not all eviction cases at legal aid involve a landlord seeking to evict a tenant.  Sometimes the eviction cases are initiated by a legal aid homeowner to evict someone else.

The client in this case was a man in his late 60’s who had been diagnosed with a learning disability but could easily manage and live independently on his own. 

One day, his nephew asked the elderly uncle if he could “stay a few days” in the uncle’s home until he found somewhere else to live. The generous uncle agreed that he could.

That’s when the nightmare began. The nephew soon began inviting others to live in the house, and the house became a haven for both drug dealing and distribution.

Not wanting “the old man” to make any trouble or alert authorities, the nephew and his friends kept him a prisoner in his own house by forbidding him to leave his bedroom (which had an attached bathroom). The nephew erected a gate in the small hall to prevent his uncle from entering other spaces in the house.  The nephew and his friends then brought in a large dog to patrol inside the house and warned the client that if he left his area, they would “sic the dog on him”.

The house began to fall into disrepair with broken windows, doors, and other various neglected items. This horrible living arrangement went on for a few years.

Finally, another relative of the uncle reached out to legal aid to help the uncle get rid of his nephew and friends.

When the uncle temporarily left the home for surgery, the kind relative filed for eviction of the nephew with the help of legal aid. Once the nephew and his friends were evicted by the courts, and the kind relative went into the home to make repairs and clean it up before the uncle returned.  The uncle came home to a renewed and empty house.

LASRV is a non-profit law firm that provides FREE legal services to more than 1,000 low-income clients a year across the Roanoke and southern Shenandoah Valleys. Civil legal services include housing, family, employment, consumer debt, and domestic violence.

LASRV regularly helps people in the Roanoke Valley and surrounding areas who are facing housing issues, domestic violence, unscrupulous car dealers and predatory lenders.  Their attorneys also have successfully challenged Virginia laws that unconstitutionally allowed removal of children from parents without a court hearing, sued a local government whose courthouse was inaccessible to people who had mobility limitations, and successfully defeated Virginia’s practice of unauthorized welfare liens and work requirements.

LASRV continues to take on a full range of civil legal services, including issues involving housing, family, employment, consumer debt, and domestic violence.

If you or someone you know is seeking legal advice but cannot afford an attorney, please reach out by visiting our website at LASRV.org to apply and for more information or to make a tax-deductible donation.