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Wow. She's really going to fight me over this stupid charge. Unfortunately for her, email is not certified mail and I made sure to point that out.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about email being a valid means of delivery of legal notice.
I'm an electronic engineer and Internet expert, and I can fake any email and claim you sent it to me, or send you any email from whoever I say it came from and doubt you could prove it didn't, although I'll admit that detailed scrutiny might reveal either to be a fake.
But there is one thing you can NEVER prove: that is that the recipient received the email.
Email is an inherently unreliable means of communications. Any engineer or IT professional will tell you that.
And please do not confuse this with e-signing. That is reliable, legal, and provable in court.
I am not discussing e-signing. I'm discussing just sending somebody email using your Gmail account or whatever.
There seems to be a lot of disagreement about email being a valid means of delivery of legal notice.
I'm an electronic engineer and Internet expert, and I can fake any email and claim you sent it to me, or send you any email from whoever I say it came from and doubt you could prove it didn't, although I'll admit that detailed scrutiny might reveal either to be a fake.
But there is one thing you can NEVER prove: that is that the recipient received the email.
Email is an inherently unreliable means of communications. Any engineer or IT professional will tell you that.
And please do not confuse this with e-signing. That is reliable, legal, and provable in court.
I am not discussing e-signing. I'm discussing just sending somebody email using your Gmail account or whatever.
Luckily for me the law is on my side. FL law specifically states that charges must be sent via certified mail.
We are discussing different things. You are discussing certified mail, I am discussing email.
No, I understand. Even in court, I dont see how even if she claims that i responded to her email that that could possibly fly. The law is written for certified mail, not email. I did respond to the email, so she can claim i received that, but still.
(Oh, and for those curious, the "trash" charge is because they found our box of missing dishes and "old soap".) I'm not sure how we missed the dishes but we thought they might have been misplaced. Sigh.
No, I understand. Even in court, I dont see how even if she claims that i responded to her email that that could possibly fly. The law is written for certified mail, not email. I did respond to the email, so she can claim i received that, but still.
You are absolutely right as the state appeals court already ruled on this. Unless it was sent Certified Mail, it is not a legal service as required and lower courts cannot recognize any alternative manner of service. Essentially, if the time deadline arrives and you have not received the notice via certified mail, they forfeit any ability to charge the security deposit and the whole security deposit must be returned.
Now, there was a second part of the decision. The landlord forfeits any claims against the security deposit and must return the entire amount, but that does not mean you cannot be sued in court for the damages and charges. It only means they have to refund the entire security deposit and sue for whatever they claim is owed.
Landlords who have found themselves in this position have a nice weapon. They go to court, file a suit, and get their summonses for you. They notify you that they are refunding the entire security deposit. It will be arriving via Registered Mail with restricted delivery (after all, it a check and they need proof you got it). They send the check and the summonses together. You get your check, you sign for it; WHAM, you've been served for the lawsuit. Now you have to figure out how to fight them especially if you have moved some distance away. If you don’t show, they win by default. Clever landlords.
You are absolutely right as the state appeals court already ruled on this. Unless it was sent Certified Mail, it is not a legal service as required and lower courts cannot recognize any alternative manner of service. Essentially, if the time deadline arrives and you have not received the notice via certified mail, they forfeit any ability to charge the security deposit and the whole security deposit must be returned.
Now, there was a second part of the decision. The landlord forfeits any claims against the security deposit and must return the entire amount, but that does not mean you cannot be sued in court for the damages and charges. It only means they have to refund the entire security deposit and sue for whatever they claim is owed.
Landlords who have found themselves in this position have a nice weapon. They go to court, file a suit, and get their summonses for you. They notify you that they are refunding the entire security deposit. It will be arriving via Registered Mail with restricted delivery (after all, it a check and they need proof you got it). They send the check and the summonses together. You get your check, you sign for it; WHAM, you've been served for the lawsuit. Now you have to figure out how to fight them especially if you have moved some distance away. If you don’t show, they win by default. Clever landlords.
Unless i've completely misread the law, if they dont send the damages via certified mail within 30 days, they forfeit the right to claim damages.
Unless i've completely misread the law, if they dont send the damages via certified mail within 30 days, they forfeit the right to claim damages.
No, they forfeit the ability to make a claim against the security deposit. The security deposit is now off the table as a tool for them to recover damages from you.
83.49 - 3(a) reads in part: If the landlord fails to give the required notice within the 30-day period, he or she forfeits the right to impose a claim upon the security deposit and may not seek a setoff against the deposit but may file an action for damages after return of the deposit.
As far as your letter, I wouldn't give them a heads-up on not sending the notice certified mail, until time is up.
If it's been 30 days and time is up, and they didn't send your notice certified mail, I'd send them a simple demand letter:
Dear Jerk Landlord:
Per FL law, you were to have sent me a certified letter with an itemization of deductions from my security deposit. You did not do this. Therefore, you have no claim to our security deposit.
Additionally, we would like to point out that we cleaned the carpets twice before we moved out with our carpet cleaner. Our move-in check list states that the carpets were stained and had a strong dog smell when we moved in. Since we are only required to leave the premises in the same condition we found it in, we believe this issue also should result in our full deposit being returned.
As such, we are officially demanding that you return the withheld funds from our security deposit in the amount of $____________ by August 7th. If you do not do so, we will file in small claims court, and let a judge determine what is fair. In that case, we will be asking for our court/attorney's fees as well as any punitive damages allowed.
Sincerely,
You
your new address
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