Today we’re chatting about something that is a little bit different than our normal topics, but it is incredibly important and can literally save you hundreds of thousands of dollars and an immeasurable amount of stress. Today we’re diving into legalities. And I’m actually going to share a personal story and something I am dealing with literally as we speak and we’ll talk about what in the world that has to do with your business and how you can protect yourself.
This episode is being recorded as this situation that I’m about to share is unfolding in real-time. Because there are still active lawsuits and some legal things happening, I am holding off on sharing this episode until all of that has concluded. So this could be months the line, I don’t know at this point, but the lessons and takeaways will still be very relevant no matter when you listen to this. But you will hear certain dates shared and so I just want to make you aware of that going into this episode.
Okay so let me start by clarifying first and foremost that I am not a lawyer. None of this constitutes legal advice in any way, shape or form. The purpose of this episode is to share what I am going through so that you can learn from some of my mistakes and then put things in place to hopefully protect yourself.
So, backstory. A few years ago I bought a home in the US. An elderly lady had lived there and passed away – not in the house, I’ll add – and it went into foreclosure and had been vacant for about four years. So it needed quite a bit of work. So I bought this house and rehabbed it from the ground up. Literally ripped the floors out and put hardwood throughout, hung new drywall, got a new septic system, a water filtration system, put a new metal roof on it, got all brand new stainless steel appliances, the works.
On a personal note, I bought this house in one of the most trying personal times of my life. Back then, I felt like my life was spinning out of control. Rehabbing this house was something I could control and something I could craft into what I wanted and what I was envisioning. This was during a real estate downturn, so before people were overbidding for houses and properties were under contract within 24 hours, so I got it for a great deal. But again, this house had blood, sweat, time, and tears poured into it. And as this house started to transform, I started to transform with it. So it was really cathartic and it was really healing and it was my perfect vision of a house.
And as life has it, about 2 months after I finished rehabbing this house, I moved to Singapore, and I now haven’t lived Stateside in over 6 years. So, when I left the US, I rented out my house. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had a bad experience with a landlord, but I was determined to have a good relationship with my tenants. So communication is really important, making sure that if there are any issues, that I addressed them immediately, and ensuring that tenants knew they could always come to me with things. And my reason to share a lot of this backstory is to show one, that my house was a labour of love. It wasn’t just an investment property with cheap appliances and finishings put in and I became a slumlord – no no no. This was my home, and of course tenants are not going to treat your home how you would, but I did try to do my due diligence and find good tenants and nurture a great relationship with them.
Fast-forward to May last year. I found out that my current tenants were sneaking in cats. Not just one or two, which would be bad enough. No, they were sneaking in five cats. Which is a huge lease violation. I am also extremely allergic to cats, so that’s a fun note I’ll have to deal with if I ever move back. We had a conversation, they understood that they needed to find other arrangements for the cats in the coming weeks, and we all went on our merry way. In July they confirmed all the cats were gone, so we’re good to go. Or so I thought.
Let’s jump to October, when I discovered the cats were STILL in the property. Now keep in mind – number one, I didn’t charge any additional money. I didn’t give them any drama. I hadn’t kicked them out. At this point they had over five months to find other arrangements for the cats, which they did not do.
When I informed them at this point I would give them until the end of the year to move out of the property, the response was to lean back into the chair, shrug, say “so what, I lied, what are you gonna do, kick us out?!” I hired a lawyer and started eviction proceedings the following day.
I won the court case in December. At the time of this recording, it is June and they are still in my home, and, plot twist. They slapped a retaliatory lawsuit on me in January. In spite of suing me, they are still fighting tooth and nail to stay in my home.
It has gone from sob story to manipulation to victimisation to outright lies, to me, my lawyer, and the court system, and it has been a nightmare I would never wish on anyone. It has caused an immeasurable amount of stress, cost me thousands of dollars in legal fees, and will likely cost another significant amount of money to fix damages due to having five effing cats in the house for over a year.
What in the hell does this have to do with business? Ohh I’m so glad you asked.
Let’s dive into that now.
1. Standing up for yourself can be uncomfortable. Do it anyway.
As a former people pleaser and someone who still struggles with being a people pleaser at times, I don’t like to cause drama. I don’t like to rock the boat or have conflict. I think that everyone should just respect everyone else, abide by what was agreed upon (especially if it was under contract), and do the right thing.
I also realise that not everything is black and white, people have different views, and people have varying value systems. And that’s what makes the world go round.
With that said, when you are running a business, it is imperative for you to have boundaries and for you to stand up for yourself in certain situations that will inevitably arise.
This can be a multitude of things, but it could literally be something quote/unquote small like someone giving pushback on boundaries. Maybe wanting you to respond on weekends or expecting turnaround in an unreasonable time frame. It could also be something bigger like wanting to get break a contract or deciding to not pay you anymore, and then you needing to address that.
There are a number of different situations that will arise, and this is not to say that you HAVE to handle something in a certain way. It’s more giving you permission to stand up for yourself even if it feels uncomfortable. I know in the past I just let people run all over me and enforcing boundaries was very difficult. But in the long run, it serves myself and my clients best when I DO actually hold those boundaries, and I can say with certainty it’s the same concept for my clients who struggle with this and also for you.
2. Some people aren’t willing to take responsibility for their own actions and will blame you. That does not mean it’s on you.
It sucks, but sometimes, in spite of due diligence, people just aren’t a great fit. In an ideal world, people realise it’s not a great fit and decide to move on with integrity, but there are times where people will blame you.
In business this can look like a client not being willing to show up and do the work, and then get frustrated when they don’t get results. Now there is a huge difference with marketing not matching expectations. So for example if I marketed that pets were allowed and then changed my mind suddenly, that’s a different expectation than being very clear and communicative from the onset.
Same concept with working with someone – if you PROMISE x, y, z results no matter what and YOU aren’t clear that clients are expected to show up to calls, do the mindset work, get visible, whatever your process is, yes of course there’s a disconnect and it makes sense why they might be pissed why they don’t get certain results.
But if you find yourself on the receiving end of a perturbed client or even derogatory things being said about you and your business, as long as you did everything that was marketed, promised, and contractually obligated, if someone did not show up and is now not willing to take responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof) and wants to blame you, know that it’s not on you. Now you can always take this a step further depending on the situation – in some situations this may mean a conversation, others it may literally mean a cease and desist letter, but what I’m try to get at here is if this happens – don’t make yourself wrong and don’t take that responsibility on. Because it’s not on you.
3. Even if you have contracts and have set things up to protect yourself and your business, check and check again.
I’ve been in business for almost a decade and legally operated a company in three different continents. I have terms and conditions and privacy policies and contracts and trademarks and insurance. My business is completely separate from my personal assets and my property is under its own umbrella.
In spite of planning ahead, doing my due diligence, and having my legal ducks in a row, this still happened. And it sucks. And it’s only by going through this awful situation and hiring an attorney that I’m learning even more ways that I could have protected myself.
If you do not have your legal ducks in a row for your business – go take care of that TODAY. I am not a lawyer, so again, this is not legal advice, but if you do not have contracts or if you copied a template off of some website – I would strongly encourage you to consider paying a couple hundred bucks and getting a contract. If you don’t have policies and disclaimers on your website, I would strongly encourage you to looking into getting those.
The company I work with, I have an affiliate link to their website attached to this episode and you can go get your contracts, everything for your website, and even your trademarks. If you only takeaway one thing from this episode – please takeaway this – go get your legal ducks in a row. If you already have them sorted, go review them and make sure you don’t need anything else.
I know this is a different situation, but I promise you do not want to go through legal mess, so go ahead and protect yourself NOW.
4. Scope creep makes things messy.
I know sometimes scope creep can happen. If you’re not familiar with what scope creep is, this is adding additional expectations of work that was not agreed upon. So this can be you adding in additional things that weren’t agreed upon that then become expected. For example, additional graphics not included in your package as a graphic designer, additional calls if you’re a coach, lengthening a project if you’re a service provider, more requests, etc etc. It’s going to vary based on industry, package, and agreement.
In my case, cats were not allowed. Period. Looking back, instead of being nice and trying to work with my tenants to rehome the cats, it would have been better to not even blur those lines. Now that is an EXTREME example, and sometimes adding in additional things can be GREAT customer service. But just keep in mind if you are expanding the scope that you communicate that with clients and they are aware this is above and beyond and that you’re mindful of how much scope creep you are allowing. Because it can be hard to roll it back once something becomes expected.
5. Crappy situations can cultivate resilience or they can break you. You are the one who gets to decide which.
When life gives you lemons, you can choose to bitch and complain, or you can turn it into lemonade.
If you’ve listened to the podcast before, you may already know that I had the idea to start this podcast for over a year. And as I shared in episode 6, life kept on lifein, as it tends to do, and other things in the business took higher priority than the podcast. But what I didn’t share was that I was absolutely TERRIFIED to launch a podcast with the word fuck in the title. Terrified.
Well, when you get sued, things that used to seem like a big deal aren’t such a big deal anymore. And here we are. I now have launched this podcast that I’m incredibly proud of, I’ve connected with so so many of you because of it, I’ve been able to physically see how resilient I can be, and something great came out of a horrible situation that I would never wish on anyone.
Listen, hard situations happen. They happen in business, they happen in life. It’s just part of the journey. And there are a lot of things that you cannot control. Coming from a control-freak, that can be incredibly annoying. But what you can control is how you react to situations. How you move forward. And how you take those lessons and learn from them.
If you are tuning in now, cross your fingers and your toes that this awful situation is in the rear-view mirror. And also thank you so much for listening. I would love to hear which takeaway was most useful for you, and if you have gone through any of these situations in life or in business, know that this too shall pass. Keep your head up, keep going, and keep moving forward. You’ve got this.
Thanks again so much for being here and I’ll catch you next week!
