Contracts and Attorney Fees

I am not a lawyer and do not work in the legal profession. First of all Iowa law does not provide for attorney fees in contract cases unless specifically addressed in the contract. To receive attorney fees, the opposing party's conduct "must rise to the level of oppression or connivance to harass or injure another." Id. at 159-60

Iowa’s court system is set up so the disputing parties will take extraordinary measures to settle their differences out of court.

I can't speak about what other state's laws are regarding attorney fees on contract cases.

You are never guaranteed to get your attorney's fees paid for in a lawsuit. That is any case. The court has to decide and award you "Attorney and court costs" in their judgement. Otherwise each party is responsible for paying their own legal costs. A judge is the one that decides who pays the attorney.

Now not to confuse the issue here, but in cases of foreclosure or liens legal costs are part of the award. Those costs are put into the total amount owed. That is because it is not a contractual case but a debt case. The court can ONLY make you "Whole". Meaning in order to have collected this debt or have certain damages paid for, you would NOT have had to hire a lawyer and incurred those costs.

Hence why small claims court is not the best option to pursue a debt owed. There's no guarantees your legal council bills will be covered. The court costs of filing the suit may be. The cost of you hiring a lawyer to represent you in court has to be awarded by the court/judge.

Another reason why I advocate liens/foreclosures/counter-suits in HOA's. They are the better legal option and hold more teeth.

Essentially that is what this law is stating. That you can get attorney's fees back if the party acted so badly that it forced you into this legal situation. Otherwise, they consider the cases a 49/51 with both parties responsible for attorney's fees.

The lawyer needs to request this of the court to get them back or from the other party to pay I should say. It really does depend on the case at hand if the court feels the defendant should never had been brought to court in the first place.