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We sold a house and the tenant that was in it moved out and does not return phone calls or text messages. She left no forwarding address and would be entitled to her entire security deposit back because she left the place satisfactory. If I have no address I have no means of returning her deposit and I am sure not going to keep trying to hunt her down to give her money back.
I have an email into the Minnesota Attorney General on the subject but I thought I would see if anyone on here knew the timefram for when the money just mine because I could not return it to her. I have documented the times and methods I have tried to contact her.
Cut her a check, and send it, REGISTERED W/ DELIVERY CONFIRMATION to her previous address.. which so happens to be the place that you rent.
If she filled out the mail-forwarding like she is supposed to, then she will get her money. If she didn't, then you can prove that you did everything within your power to get this money to her, should she wake up in a sue-happy mood one of these rainy days.
(Of course, KEEP the unopened envelope once it comes back return-to-sender)
Yeah, we put that right in our lease. If you don't give a forwarding address and we can't contact you, then we mail the check to the rental address and hope that you gave the USPS your forwarding address. If that comes back, we make one more attempt to contact you. After 60 days, we stop looking and you forfeit your deposit.
I think what you have done, combined with what Carlitos said, is probably satisfactory, but would be curious to see if you get an answer back from your state AG.
She had a PO box and the town is only 800 people. I called the Post Office and the gal working told me that she closed her PO box but was unaware of a forwarding address.
I know how I would get in contact with her if I had to for legal reasons because she is registered and on State HUD assistance, but I am not going to go through that trouble to return money to her that she apparently does not care about.
Odds are that the deposit if unable to be retuned to the rightful person will have to be turned over to your State which will hold it as unclaimed money. Make sure you follow any requirments with whatever agency handles unclaimed funds.
Odds are that the deposit if unable to be retuned to the rightful person will have to be turned over to your State which will hold it as unclaimed money. Make sure you follow any requirments with whatever agency handles unclaimed funds.
That may be, if so I think I will just hold onto it for safe keeping. Then if at somepoint if she pushes the issue down the road I will let the court decide.
No sense in turning over that large amount of money to have it sit in unclaimed money forever.
That may be, if so I think I will just hold onto it for safe keeping. Then if at somepoint if she pushes the issue down the road I will let the court decide.
No sense in turning over that large amount of money to have it sit in unclaimed money forever.
Be careful, thats the thinking that gets many a landlord into legal trouble. If the state laws requires you to turn it over, you are supposed to turn it over regardless of your personal feelings.
As a FYI, the State is mandated and must take certain action to reunite the money with its rightful owner. Since they are governement, they can use all their records to detrmine the identity of the person and they can use their and other states as well as the federal governement to locate the person. Years ago i got a form letter from Social Security telling me that a certain state's tresuray unlcaimed property office I lived in years ago has asked for assistance in locating me. It provided the state info and after a call, a old credit union i belonged to had turned over $123 to the state as unclaimed property.
The point is, don;t create a problem for yourself down the road just because you feel a certain way. As for the courts, the day you will del with a court on this is the day your being arraigned for theft for violating the law.
The deposit must be returned to the person (or entity) who paid it. Did the agency pay the deposit? Do you have a copy of her application, receipt for the deposit, anything like that? The former owner or management company might be able to help you there.
I am the former owner of the house. We sold it and our tenant moved out. I think she is mad at us for 'selling it out from under her' as she sees it. She had been wanting to buy it for the last 3 years but had not signed any deals and was not even able to get financed to buy the house. All she could do was contract for deed and I was not interested in that.
So the day she was due to get out she contacted our real estate agent via text message and told him they were out which he relayed to me. The realtor and the new buy went and did a walk through of the propertie and found some trash had been left behind. Both the realtor and I attempted to contact the old tenant and tell her she had until Saturday to dispose the bags of trash of she would be charged. Long story short she did not return any of my calls or texts but Saturday morning texted the realtor and said the bags were removed.
I had told her I need her forwarding address so I could return her deposit 4 times and she never replied, so I did make a good faith attempt to return it at this point.
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