Help, I Didn’t Sign That Lease! I’m Getting Evicted
Lots of cases involve landlords and tenants.
If you’re a tenant and they are kicking you out, or raising their rent, or trying to evict you based on a lease that you didn’t sign, you have the law on your side.
However, you need to prove that you didn’t sign that lease, and you need to prove where the documents are. Unfortunately, most tenants don’t save leases.
They don’t keep their contracts. They don’t take pictures of things they sign.
They don’t have all the evidence that might be required to win that case because you really need to show proof of the terms of the original lease that you did sign.
(That is, assuming you *have* a lease. If you have a verbal lease, all bets are off.)
To prove your landlord’s lease is fraudulent, you really need that lease.
If not, the second thing you can do is to figure out all the evidence.
If you’re saying your signature or your spouse’s signature was forged, you need to get 20 to 40 samples of their signature around that time frame and then hire a forensic handwriting expert to investigate the case to determine if that’s actually not an authentic signature.
When a signature is forged on a lease, it’s usually in one of two ways:
- They could actually forge your name on a typed lease that says, “I agreed to 10% rate rent increase”, for example.
- They can actually extract your name, cut and paste it from the lease you did sign, and paste it on the new lease with all the new terms. Now, this is a little bit harder to prove and easier to prove depending on whether you have the source document.
So, when it comes to cut and paste, also called electronic transfers, it’s basically a division of altering documents. And it is absolutely criminal. It’s not fair. People shouldn’t do it.
But that doesn’t mean they’re going to go to jail for it unless it gets in front of a judge in a criminal case. So if someone has created an altered lease or a false lease, we have to determine if it’s a fake signature, if it’s a simulated signature or a false signature, often called forgery, or if it’s an electronic transfer, which is a cut and paste of a previous signature that you had.
There was a case I was aware of involving two people suing each other.
One side was creating these agreements which were all fabricated from previous agreements. In the signature line, they cut and pasted old signatures from 3 years ago.
Once their forgeries were proven, of course, the defendants tried to get the false agreements stricken from the court records and discarded.
They did a total 180 on the fake lease that they were basing their entire case on. ‘Oh yeah, we’re not going to use that evidence, never mind.’
The judge did not allow this.
It was way too late for the defendants to say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s not really an important document anymore.’
Clearly it’s kind of important, because it discredits them.
They were submitting fake documents telling the court that both parties agreed to a huge amount of money in this business transaction, and it was all a fabrication from a document 3 years ago.
The style of electronic forgery they engaged in is what we call “electronic cut and paste transfer“.
So whether you’re dealing with a forged or fraudulent lease, contract, terms, a buyout, or stock agreements, it is all false evidence.
But it’s very hard to prove that it’s been forged all by yourself because judges and juries don’t believe the people suing each other.
They do believe eyewitnesses to the cause, and expert witnesses, of course. That’s where I come in.
A credible expert can analyze a document with your forged signature and testify that they believe it is a forgery or an electronic cut and paste transfer.
An expert is not only experienced in analyzing the evidence for clues of forgery and cut and paste; they are also experienced in making a persuasive case that their opinion is scientific and correct.
My name is Bart Baggett. If you need our help, check us out at handwritingexpert.com or handwritingexpertusa.com. One of our experts around the country can help solve your document problem. We’ll help see if that is true. And if you’re an attorney, reach out because mostly we work with attorneys solving play dollar forgery cases.
Bart Baggett
The Nation’s Leading Forensic Handwriting Expert
CEO of Handwriting Experts Inc.
Forensic Document Examiner • Expert Witness • Legal Consultant
“We solve million dollar forgery cases.”
Telephone: 1-800-980-9030
YouTube: @thehandwritingexpert
LinkedIn: bartbaggett
Facebook: bartbaggett
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FAQ SECTION
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Q1: What should I do if my landlord is trying to evict me based on a lease I never signed?
A: Gather all available evidence, especially any copy of the original lease you did sign. Then hire a forensic handwriting expert to analyze the disputed document. A qualified expert can determine whether your signature was forged or digitally transferred from a previous agreement.
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Q2: How can a forensic handwriting expert prove a lease signature was forged?
A: A forensic handwriting expert collects 20 to 40 authentic signature samples from the relevant time period and scientifically compares them to the disputed signature. They can then testify in court with an evidence-based opinion that the signature is a forgery or an electronic cut-and-paste transfer.
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Q3: What is electronic cut-and-paste forgery on a lease?
A: Electronic cut-and-paste forgery — also called an electronic transfer — occurs when a fraudulent party takes a genuine signature from a previously signed document and digitally transplants it onto a new lease with altered or fabricated terms. This is a form of document fraud and is a criminal act.
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Q4: Why do tenants often struggle to prove a lease is fraudulent?
A: Most tenants do not retain copies of their original leases or photograph documents they sign. Without the original agreement, proving a landlord’s document is fraudulent becomes significantly more difficult, making professional expert analysis and thorough evidence gathering essential to a successful case.
