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They can refuse the certified letters if they wish, but that won't help them if it goers to court. You just take the unopened certified letter to court, and the judge will rule in your favor. Prove you made the attemp and he refused to sign, he's done for.
Ignoring a registered letter gains him nothing. The court has heard it all, and has provisions for people like him...
a returned certified letter may not be proof depending on what the USPS puts for the reason for returning. If it says things like Refused, Unclaimed, etc, you have a good case of them being served. But if they return it for 15 day expiration, unable to deliver as addressed, unknown, or any of the stock messages, the courts don;t consider that deliver or attempted deliver because the post office isn;t saying they made an attempt to deliver to the person it was addressed to. Check the return letter to make sure it meets the proof you will need. If it don;t meet it, check to make sure it was address properly and send another.
The OP in this case is probably going to have his former landlord take him to court for non-payment of rent AND will probably not return the security deposit. Additionally, I suspect the LL will also sue for insufficient notice to vacate.
By including a copy of the original letter which was left where the rent checks were supposed to be left, hopefully the OP dated that, and sending everything both regular mail and certified (new letter notifying LL of move-out date as well as original notice of intent to vacate), OP will have proof to disprove LL's small claims suit AND to counter-sue for the security deposit and whatever that state allows for a punishment for not complying with the 15/30 days' written notice of damages and return of security. OP will then not have to pay to sue the LL for the security deposit and will get perhaps triple the security AND will not have to pay for damages, even if he might have agreed to some of them had the LL followed the law.
I'd err on the side of overkill, if it were overkill, in order to get back triple my security deposit. The extra 40c stamp is generally worth it.
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