"I'm going to have my lawyer write you a letter!"
Have you ever heard that threat? I have. Doesn't scare me one bit.
Want to know why?
Most lawyers hold an MBS (master of bullshit) and their stock in trade is bluster, intimidation and, yes, bullshit!
I did carpets for a lady who owns property in Cornville last week. She's not giving back a good percentage of the deposit to the former renter due to the state in which it was left and is sick of being a landlady, so she's going to sell the place. The renter is raising hell and part of that is the dreaded letter she promises from her lawyer.
She doesn't accept my receipt because I'm not a "licensed contractor." I don't know of anyone who cleans carpets who is because it's not required for cleaning carpets. We're skilled technicians, not contractors.
A while back, we had our porch remodeled, relocated the door and had new stairs put in. The Property owners association demanded we pay for a permit from them. We basically told them what piece of fictional real estate they could migrate to.
We don't think they are even operating legally as very few bother to pay the voluntary dues making paid members way below any legal quorum requirement and the meetings aren't even advertised. A small clique of totalitarian-minded would be hitlers and hitleresses are just determined to throw whatever weight they imagine themselves having around, supposedly to protect us from county interference as we are in county area, not subject to Cottonwood ordinances and control.
Oh, horrors! County control! How terrible!
If we do anything major, we have to have a county permit whether they exist or not. Why pay extra for approval from them?
Anyway, they followed through and had their lawyer send two letters at the cost of $150 a pop. We responded with a photocopy of the flyer we orginally responded to in buying this place which clearly showed the porch was always there. A few days later, I noticed a pickup driving slowly by with the driver holding a piece of paper and looking at our porch. We never heard anything more.
Fearful people tend to quail at the mention of a letter from a lawyer. The reality is that a lawyer has no enforcement power at all. He can sling the crap around to try to intimidate, but he is not a judge or a jury and outside of bluster, can't really do much of anything to force anyone to comply with his demands.
So, if you're threatened with that horror of horrors, the best response is usually a yawn. Or, maybe a one finger salute. Guess which finger?
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