Legal Question in Criminal Law in Ohio

A landlord's first step towards a legal eviction is to place a three-day notice.

A lease can be breached in a variety of ways (non-payment of rent, fees, failure of the tenant to conform to the tenant's responsibilities found in the Ohio Revised Code, breach of a lease provision, etc.) So long as there has been a breach, your landlord doesn't have to wait an entire year to evict you - he can do it as soon as the lease is breached and the three-day period expires.

Should you feel that you haven't breached the lease, and after the expiration of the three-day notice he files an eviction action in your local court of law, you can fight the eviction by going to court and presenting evidence that supports your theory that you didn't breach the lease.