Security deposit refund & late fees

[CArenter]

Thanks for the response Ultrarunner. I was able to go to the law library and found out that statute 1671 regarding late fees is still on the books. It looks like the burden of proof would be on the landlord to prove that she was extremely inconvenienced by my late rent.

She does not want to go to court, but I am leaning in that direction. I am going to write her asking once again about the money she owes me, and give her a date to respond. After that, I will then offer to accept a lesser amount in order to settle out of court. If she still refuses, I will then proceed with small claims court.

My question now is, if I lose the case, and end up having to pay her all the backed up late fees (which I will if a judge declares it to be legal), can she counter-sue me, and for what, if the legal fees are the only issue between us? She says she will counter sue if I take her to court.

[BEAR DOWN]

Originally Posted by DowntownVentura

I assume this is California since it is in the California forum.

There are a lot of things wrong here.
1. It doesn't seem the landlord advised you on your right to a pre-inspection before you moved
2. The landlord waited too long to return your security deposit and/or provide a list of deposit deductions
3. The landlord did not prorate the carpet. You didn't indicate how long you were renting the unit but if it was more than a couple of years, you shouldn't have to pay anything for the carpet. If you lived there a shorter period of time, your proportion of the replacement cost would be very low.

Your recourse is small claims court. Read here California Tenants - California Department of Consumer Affairs for the law and here for the process to take when the law has been violated California Tenant Law - Non-profit legal advice for California renters' rights

I Just had something similar happen to me. We had an initial inspection (never written just a formal 24hr verbal request). We had agreed to make some repairs and our landlord required us to give her a list of companies to approve before we were to have them cleaned. We did and she said she would rather use another company that would charge the same rate. So we agreed verbally. Our contract ended on March 30, 2011@ 12p.m. Since then there was no corrospondance verbally, text or written/email. Then on April 21st we received the statement of itemized repairs which included her doing work on the house for 23 hours (not itemized what she did) and threw in a new pool pump at the cost of $1800+ with0out ever telling us that there was a problem with the pump. At the time of the initial inspection the pool was running and the pool was clean. We moved out of the house 1 week earlier because we rented another house and the contract started on March 25. So my question is this, am I suppose to receive the deposit/letter of itemized deduction by the 21st day or is she suppose to mail out the letter by the 21st day? She had the letter certified and mail out on April 20th. Does the clock start counting on the day the contract expired or the next day. So would day 1 be on the 30th when the contract was up or on the 31st? Any help would be appreciated

[David Alas.]

I moved out of a rental property on July 1st, the landlord had people come over and look at the house the same day I was moving out, then he rented the property to the people that came over to look at the house on that day, now he want;s to charge me cleaning fees when the house was super clean and he was able to rent it with out doing anything to it; is that legal, also now he wants to deduct lat fees from my deposit.
Please advise.