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3 months before my lease was up i informed my property manager i wanted to stay at least one more year. She said no problem thats great, just come in whenever you have time and we will resign the lease. A few weeks later i text her and say i am on my way to the office to sign. She calls me up and says the owner has decided to sell the house. The owner comes by and asks how soon i can be out so he can put the house on the market. He was aiming for 15 days, i ended up moving out in 8!!! I was sent an itemized list dated the very next day of $3100 in damages. Everything was embellished. He charged for an unlawful pet of 300 bucks for example. Not animal was every in residence. Security deposit was $2400. Threatening to charge me over $1000 i disputed. The property management company sent a letter back apologizing for the way the move out was handled. They also stated they would not be sending anything to collections but mentioned they are returning the security deposit to the owner himself. In Florida, if a lease states how long a tenant has to give for notice of move out, the landlord has to respect the same time frame. My lease stated i had to give 60 days, but did not state how long the landlord had to give. According to Florida law the landlord had to give me 60 days not to vacate but did not even come close. Am i entitled to my full security deposit. If everything went the way it was supposed to i would probably owe $700 out of my deposit for wear and tear. Can someone help please.
As some that has managed properties for 30 years in 3 different states, I will take a crack at this.
If the Lease states you have to give 60 days then the same applies to the Landlord. But it sounds like you moved out on your own accordance in 8 days, so I do not see an issues there.
The landlord can only deduct for actual damages. In other words he cannot just pocket the money. Not sure how he could know actual damages the very next day, but that is beside the point.
I will tell you right up front as a Landlord my experience it is usually the tenant, but I will try and be unbiased here.
What exactly did he charge you $3100 for? He can not retroactively charge for a pet, but if the pet caused damages and destroyed all the carpet he can charge for that.
I am confused by your statement. You owe for damages caused by you or your friends to the property, not for wear and tear. But wear and tear is not dirt. If they had to hire a cleaning crew and replace carpet and etc. that gets expensive fast, but they need to show you those receipts.
So first, provide a detailed list of exactly what they deducted for and include the receipts showing they spent the money.
By law you need to send them a letter disputing the charges and if they do not agree then you can sue in court and if they are out of town they are not going to be crazy about coming in town to go to court. Gosh I should not be telling you secrets to get the Landlord.
I would lawyer up for over $3,000 in cash. We once had a homeowner screw us out of half of our security deposit for such TERRIBLE atrocities as soap build-up in the shower, a Cheerio found in the carpet (one....a single) and a sock found behind the washing machine. They paid water so I ran the water in every faucet for five straight days as my payback.
I would lawyer up for over $3,000 in cash. We once had a homeowner screw us out of half of our security deposit for such TERRIBLE atrocities as soap build-up in the shower, a Cheerio found in the carpet (one....a single) and a sock found behind the washing machine. They paid water so I ran the water in every faucet for five straight days as my payback.
Nice, It might cost you more in lawyer bills than your security deposit. First we need the facts as I stated before. Either the landlord has a case or he does not. If you present an intelligent case you do not need a lawyer IMO. Another question did you do a walk through and document the condition of the property before you moved in. I do a pre-move in walk through. If you did not do that then you might have a better case as you can say that was the condition upon move in. Anything I deduct from a security deposit obvious and I have receipts to back it up.
To the above poster go out and hire someone to clean a house and see how much it cost. You are required to return the house the same condition. Really the Landlord had a deduction for a cheerio found on the carpet? You are once again required to leave the place clean if they had to hire some one to clean the house and clean the carpet that is a legit deduction and they should have a receipt to prove it. They did not hire someone to clean the house because they were just bored. I have seen houses left by tenants with dirt everywhere.
lets see, $300 for an unlawful pet that never existed, he prorated $431 of rent that he agreed to not charge me, $500 for ac service when its advertised for $90. $125 for trash removal, all trash was placed in MY trash cans that i left for him, garbage did not come for 3 more days, $1200 for minor smoke damage in the garage, $400 to repaint a 5' x 4' section of a wall, and a few other menial charges. No receipts, all were even numbers.
Dates: Owner come to residence on April 20th asking if i can be out by May 15th, i moved out May 10th. (Property Manager informed me that owner wanted to sell April18th when i was on my way to resign lease.
lets see, $300 for an unlawful pet that never existed, he prorated $431 of rent that he agreed to not charge me, $500 for ac service when its advertised for $90. $125 for trash removal, all trash was placed in MY trash cans that i left for him, garbage did not come for 3 more days, $1200 for minor smoke damage in the garage, $400 to repaint a 5' x 4' section of a wall, and a few other menial charges. No receipts, all were even numbers.
Dates: Owner come to residence on April 20th asking if i can be out by May 15th, i moved out May 10th. (Property Manager informed me that owner wanted to sell April18th when i was on my way to resign lease.
1) I still do not understand the $300 for an unlawful pet. There has to be damages. You can certainly disagree with this one.
2) Did you owe prorated rent. Either you did or you did not. You really should have gotten something in writing about the agreement to move out early that would define all this. Do you have anything in writing whereby he request you to be out by May 15th. Anyway exactly what time period did the prorated rent cover.
This is one might be tricky if you and the owner had no clear exit date. For example if you were to move out end of May and you move out May 14th, you still own for the entire month of May on May 1st.
3) "$500 for ac service when its advertised for $90" What was advertised for $90. The landlord is not required to use some service you saw advertised nor is that necessarily what he had done. Here is the real question what was the service done and did the lease require you to perform the service. The only thing I can see here is you never changed the filter or worst you ran the heat pump with no filter and then completely clogged the evaporator. But again it is unclear what they are charging you for. Demand proof of the expense. He did not hire someone and pay them $500 for no reason. The question is what exactly was done.
4) " $125 for trash removal," I have personally experience this so many times. Tenants just throw out all their trash and then I am getting notices from the city. This really depends on exactly what happened and the trash rules where you are. In my area you better have your trash in the city provided trash can or they are not going to pick it up. Did you throw out a bunch of bulk items like mattress and etc. If the landlord has pictures of trash thrown everywhere and a receipt he had to pay someone to remove the trash then I am on his side.
5) " $1200 for minor smoke damage in the garage" So you admit you causes smoke damages. Why did you not have the damages. If you did not repair the damages, then the landlord has to hire someone to do it and he is not required to hire some jack leg and it is expensive to hire professionals. In this case the question is where is the landlords receipt for hiring someone to repair the smoke damage. As you admit you caused smoke damage I think the Landlord has a legit case here.
6) "$400 to repaint a 5' x 4' section of a wall" My 1st question is why did the wall need to be repainted. Did it need patch work also. If you damaged the wall you should have had it fixed before you moved out. If not, once again the Landlord can hire someone to do the work.
Here is what I would do. Write him a certified letter stating you disagree with the charges and demand he send you receipts of work performed and on item such as AC service why you are being charged. you might also read through your lease.
I am sorry, but from my experience when a tenant causes smoke damaged to a garage it is usually not minor and there are other issues going on.
Below is the security deposit laws along with timelines. Read it 10 times and make sure you meet the deadlines. One thing you mentioned was that a property manager had the security deposit. The laws are strict regarding security deposits. I am not sure about this but something you could look into was can the property manager return the security deposit when it is in dispute with the tenant.
And let me add another fact to those that think "EVIL" Landlord. Let me tell you a secret, NOTHING makes me happier than being able to return 100% of the security deposit back to the tenant. Because that means they left the property in the same condition I gave it to them minus normal wear and tear.
I do not charge for my time and what repairs I personally do and do not charge to call, meet, and wait around for contractors to make repairs the tenant caused to the property. So when I do not have to do that I am thrilled!!!!!!
It's interesting to me that the "property manager" let the owner handle the move-out and processing of the security deposit claim. If that "property manager" had proper documentation of the move-in condition, why would they let the owner handle that part, and possibly expose their company to a lawsuit from this now-disgruntled, former tenant?
Quote:
I do not charge for my time and what repairs I personally do and do not charge to call, meet, and wait around for contractors to make repairs the tenant caused to the property. So when I do not have to do that I am thrilled!!!!!!
I stopped "not charging for my time" a long time ago. Granted, I'm not meeting or waiting around for anyone, but it doesn't mean I have to work for free when a tenant doesn't do what they agree to do during their tenancy. If a tenant wants to leave me a mess to deal with, causing me to have to put together a claim against their deposit, you'd better believe they're gonna be charged for my time to do so. But, I totally agree that I'd rather not have to do any of that and just send back the full deposit. It's a lot quicker and painless.
[QUOTE
I stopped "not charging for my time" a long time ago. Granted, I'm not meeting or waiting around for anyone, but it doesn't mean I have to work for free when a tenant doesn't do what they agree to do during their tenancy. If a tenant wants to leave me a mess to deal with, causing me to have to put together a claim against their deposit, you'd better believe they're gonna be charged for my time to do so. But, I totally agree that I'd rather not have to do any of that and just send back the full deposit. It's a lot quicker and painless.[/quote]
Maybe Florida is more generous. I stopped when I was a landlord in MD; they would not award you a dime for your time if you go to court. Or at least that was my experience. And back there they can sue you for 3 times the security deposit, so I was extra conservative. Maybe if you had some agreement signed by a tenant in advance to the cost of repairs.
BTW, I agree the whole property manager handing the move out to the owner is odd and seems to put him at risk.
I'll note that the County Courts in Florida (which is what we call our "small claims court") have jurisdiction in disputes that involve less than $15,000:
The County Courts are designed to be user-friendly for people who don't have lawyers. OTOH - I've never used the new e-filing system and don't know how easy it is to use.
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But, I totally agree that I'd rather not have to do any of that and just send back the full deposit. It's a lot quicker and painless.
