Landlord witholding deposit after move-out (WA) (lease, tenant, rental, security deposit)

[slantedview]

We moved out of a rental on the 26th of Oct for a lease that ended on the 31st. After a few weeks of waiting to get our refund from the landlords we contacted them and were told that they had sent it to address X, which was not our new address. They claimed "we wrote it down wrong" - supposedly making an 8 look like a 3. We have an e-mail showing that we sent him the correct address prior to our move out. Anyways, we waited a few more weeks for them to "resend" our refund, it didn't show up, we attempted to contact the landlord via various means and they ignored us. So we sent a certified demand letter.

The same day that we sent a certified demand letter (more than a month after our lease had ended) we finally got a move-out checklist from the landlord deducting amounts for various damages that happened to total the full amount of what would have been our deposit. The checklist was conveniently dated 14 days after our move out (which obviously we weren't present for and we never signed the checklist). All of the claimed damages are bogus and we'd be happy to fight them individually. But according to WA law (RCW 59.18.260) it seems that the checklist was required to have been sent to us and postdated within 14 days of moving out. The landlord will no doubt claim that he sent it to the wrong address, though I'm not sure he can prove that he sent it to anywhere, and I'm not sure he can prove that we wrote down the wrong address.

The landlords also failed to provide us a pre-move-in checklist signed by both parties prior to collecting a deposit from us, as required by WA law (RCW 59.18.260). We did get a checklist after we paid a deposit, and we actually never signed it since it was inadequate. So it seems like we have firm legal grounds to recover our deposit, and then some, since I'll have to fly back to WA from CA to contest this. I welcome anyone's input though.

What I'm more unsure about is what to do if/when the landlords countersue to collect for the damages they claim we caused. They claim they had to pay $250 to repair a dishwasher, which while it was 20 years old and had ductape holding it together when we moved in, it seemed to work fine. If it didn't we would have asked them to fix it while we lived there. They claim they spent $500 to clean the carpets, which were ~10 years old had some stains on them when we moved in, but were the same when we moved out. And they claim they had to pay $250 for yard cleanup. Our lease required us to maintain the lawn and shrubs in good condition, which we did and paid someone to do regularly, but there were still leaves falling up until day we moved out (big trees, fall in Washington). And I'm sure there were a lot of leaves to be cleaned 2 weeks after we moved out (and our lease ended) which is when the move-out checklist that the landlord sent us was dated.

Any thoughts on how we might contest these things? Much appreciated.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by slantedview

...we finally got a move-out checklist from the landlord deducting amounts for various damages

The landlords also failed to provide us a pre-move-in checklist signed by both parties
We did get a checklist after we paid a deposit, and we actually never signed it since it was inadequate.

Any thoughts on how we might contest these things? Much appreciated.

It's called "he said vs she said"
If you have some good date stamped photographs (showing condition at move out
and similar ones for move in) that you can convince a Judge your position is (more) correct...

[slantedview]

Originally Posted by MrRational

It's called "he said vs she said"
If you have some good date stamped photographs (showing condition at move out
and similar ones for move in) that you can convince a Judge your position is (more) correct...

Thanks for the response...

I wish we did have photographs when we moved in. Our move-in inspection was inadequate precisely because it didn't mention stains on the carpet. When we did our actual move-out inspection with the landlord on the day we moved out (this isn't the one he eventually sent us) the house got a clean bill. We were told we'd get our full deposit back (we have a few witnesses to this for what it's worth). We signed it, but didn't get a copy. The move-out inspection we eventually received with all of the bogus damages was dated 2 weeks later, and of course we never signed it. Doesn't it only matter what the condition of the house was when we actually moved out?

[YAZ]

A long time ago in Michigan,

I was a tenant along with 2 other guys renting a big house on a lake.

It was nice.....

The home was put up for sale and it did sell. So it was time to go.

We were quite tidy with the place and even did some minor repairs while we lived there. Just some plumbing stuff and replaced some drywall that looked like crap when we moved in.

We moved our stuff out and our ladyfriends spent an entire day deep cleaning. Dusting, carpet shampoo, tile waxing, etc.

2 months later we received a notice saying that we weren't getting our deposit back ($700) because the home was filthy.

We took her to court.

She LIED.

She complained that the grass wasn't cut, the home was a complete shambles, and there were ashes in the fireplace.

(I forgot about the fireplace....it was summertime...)

She even stopped by while I was cutting the grass, and I asked her if she wanted to do a walk thru.

"No," she said, "I don't like doing that with tenants present."

Big clue right there.

Look, folks. I was a landlord for some time and I can tell y'all horror stories of what I've cleaned up. This house was immaculate. Better shape than when we moved in.

So, in court.....she makes up some more stuff....I can't remember exactly what she said because I was livid......

....I then presented to the judge the letter that she sent us....of course it was postmarked.

Ooops.

She waited 2 months to tell us that we weren't getting our security deposit back.

Michigan law states that ya gotta do it within 30 days.

Or the tenants get double.

We got double.

[slantedview]

Originally Posted by YAZ

A long time ago in Michigan,

I was a tenant along with 2 other guys renting a big house on a lake.

It was nice.....

The home was put up for sale and it did sell. So it was time to go.

We were quite tidy with the place and even did some minor repairs while we lived there. Just some plumbing stuff and replaced some drywall that looked like crap when we moved in.

We moved our stuff out and our ladyfriends spent an entire day deep cleaning. Dusting, carpet shampoo, tile waxing, etc.

2 months later we received a notice saying that we weren't getting our deposit back ($700) because the home was filthy.

We took her to court.

She LIED.

She complained that the grass wasn't cut, the home was a complete shambles, and there were ashes in the fireplace.

(I forgot about the fireplace....it was summertime...)

She even stopped by while I was cutting the grass, and I asked her if she wanted to do a walk thru.

"No," she said, "I don't like doing that with tenants present."

Big clue right there.

Look, folks. I was a landlord for some time and I can tell y'all horror stories of what I've cleaned up. This house was immaculate. Better shape than when we moved in.

So, in court.....she makes up some more stuff....I can't remember exactly what she said because I was livid......

....I then presented to the judge the letter that she sent us....of course it was postmarked.

Ooops.

She waited 2 months to tell us that we weren't getting our security deposit back.

Michigan law states that ya gotta do it within 30 days.

Or the tenants get double.

We got double.

Very nice Washington law is that we can ask for up to double. Since I'll be travelling from CA to WA to get my deposit back, you can bet I'll ask for that + my travel cost.