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Hi, my friend just moved out of an apartment following his lease expiring. He gave 30 days notice as required by the lease. When he went to pay his final month, & give notice of his leaving, the landlord told him he wouldn't be getting his deposit back. When he asked why, he was told that since he had only lived there for 6 months, he wasn't eligible to get his deposit back. Today he went to turn in his keys & do the final walk through of his apartment & he asked again. This time he was told that according to New Mexico state law, that since he had only signed a 6 month lease, & only lived there for 6 months, they weren't required to return his deposit. I've looked it up online, but I can't find anything that says this. Is this true? Is there a law such as this in New Mexico? Thanks in advance for your help.
I don't know but my wife and I are house-hunting lightly right now and are in the final two months of a 6-month lease, too, so we're basically in the same boat as you. I'd love to know the answer to this, too.
I have been a tenant and a landlord. There are situations when a landlord does not have to return a "security deposit". Here are some references which might help:
Step 1. Find your lease, make a copy, highlight the portions your landlord has wrong, hand it to the landlord.
Step 2. If no results, fill out a complaint form for small claims court (don't file it yet), with another copy of the highlighted lease attached, hand it to the landlord.
Step 3. File complaint form, pay fees, get a friend to verify in writing handing a post-filed copy to the landlord and that you paid your friend to do it, get that verification notarized.
Step 4. File that with the court.
Step 5. Wait months for court date, be ready to say exactly what you want dollar-wise, with justification (deposit plus court costs).
Step 6. Get judgment, fill out motion to garnish, submit to court.
Step 7. Get granted motion to garnish and order to garnish, submit order to your landlord's bank (which you should be able to get from your bank, as bank and account are typically written on the back of your cashed checks).
Step 8. Collect garnishment, move on with your life.
If at any step your landlord realizes they can't roll you over and wants to pay you, take it. You won't profit from getting to step 8 outside of recovering your costs.
If that is the law, it certainly isn't a very fair one. I would check with the housing authority in ABQ or have your friend check. If this is the case, there is little he can do about it. Sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way. of course on the other side of the coin; what kind of a deposit was it? If it was a cleaning deposit, the landlord might be justified as it costs a lot to get apartments ready to re-lease when someone only stays 6 months. No, the cost is the same, but the cleaning has to be done twice as often. Just my thought on the issue.
Step 6. Get judgment, fill out motion to garnish, submit to court.
Step 7. Get granted motion to garnish and order to garnish, submit order to your landlord's bank (which you should be able to get from your bank, as bank and account are typically written on the back of your cashed checks).
Step 8. Collect garnishment, move on with your life.
If at any step your landlord realizes they can't roll you over and wants to pay you, take it. You won't profit from getting to step 8 outside of recovering your costs.
The bank probably won't divulge the account number and nowadays it needn't be on the back of the cashed check. (In my state the garnishment form requires both the landlord's account number and federal tax ID#.) There's another option, which is to accept only half the judgement and give the other half to a collection agency that will threaten the landlord's credit rating. If the landlord doesn't pay the collection agency, you get nothing of course. It's easy to assign the judgement to collections. Here's more info on NM garnishments: NM Collecting the Judgment.
Last edited by Jalhop; 05-10-2013 at 07:50 PM..
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