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what are you being charged for ?.. you should have a itemized list of damages .. and why didn't you ASK for your security deposit back in 30 days? you gotta tell us the whole story before we can offer any ideas on this... did you break lease? was your apt left clean? all sorts of stuff is at play here so tells us more ..
Yes, the landlord has a full year to sue you for damages in small claims court (most jurisdictions) and 5-6 years to as much as 10 years to sue you in big boy court.
If the house has been empty, it is possible that the damage, whatever it is, wasn't discovered until now. There is also a reason in some states that a landlord doesn't sue until after 6 months have passed, but I don't remember what it is.
There is probably some sort of law in your area about how long a landlord has to contact you about your refund, but he generally doesn't have to hunt you down. If you didn't leave a forwarding address or you were unavailable, there is a limit to how much a landlord has to do to make sure you were notified.
The apt has been empty since I left.
I left in February and did not owe anything.
Did you do any documenting of condition in February?
Photos? Walk through? etc?
Still... and even without that objective proof... they'll have a VERY hard time PROVEing you're responsible at this late date.
They can try certainly and some PM's seem to love trying to get away with this sort of nonsense.
I'd send them a very nice note inviting them to not bother me on the issue again.
If that note were sent from your attorney even better.
eta:
Whatever the particular laws of your state and whatever degree of rights that might allow a LL or PM
to attempt to come after you... these are all quite immaterial relative to actually succeeding at it.
Don't let them bully you.
Last edited by MrRational; 08-24-2017 at 10:37 AM..
What state was the apt in? I suggest that you Google "<your state> security deposit laws" and read them in their entirety and it should provide you with what you need to know.
Otherwise, you are not giving us anywhere near enough info to provide you with any suggestions/opinions to even attempt to assist you.
What happened to your security deposit? It sounds like they withheld it? I assume you contacted them asking about it?
Anyway, the answer is yes, they can sue you. If they withheld your security deposit without providing you an itemized listing of what the money was used for, however, you can sue them to get that back. They could still tack that difference onto their lawsuit, though.
For example, say they claim you did $2,000 worth of damages. They withheld your $500 security deposit and now want to sue you for the remaining $1,500. Since they didn't follow the law with the security deposit (and I'm just assuming they didn't since your post isn't very clear), they owe you the $500 back. They could still turn around and sue you for the full $2,000 so it's all basically a wash.
Rent was paid in full.....maybe slight damages to a wall while moving,but neither I nor the landlord had an itemized list. Nobody took pictures either.
She just said she would contact me in 30 days,but she did not.
She would have to prove I caused those damages 6 months after i left.
Rent was paid in full.....maybe slight damages to a wall while moving,but neither I nor the landlord had an itemized list. Nobody took pictures either.
She just said she would contact me in 30 days,but she did not.
She would have to prove I caused those damages 6 months after i left.
She is suing me about roof damage.
Did she return your security deposit? Send you a letter of deductions? Has she been in contact at all these past six-months? What is she claiming you did to cause damage to the roof?
Rent was paid in full.....maybe slight damages to a wall while moving,but neither I nor the landlord had an itemized list. Nobody took pictures either.
She just said she would contact me in 30 days,but she did not.
She would have to prove I caused those damages 6 months after i left.
She is suing me about roof damage.
I dealt with something similar...Landlord was trying to collect for 3x the security deposit, for really strange things...Like smoke detector batteries...The smoke detector worked when I left, it didn't need batteries, but more importantly, how would I prove it? I didn't take pictures of that. She also wanted me to pay for water damage that resulted from the ceiling falling in the day before move out. I notified her of the ceiling but she was out of town and left it for four days, causing worse damage.
She was also late with the itemized list. I wrote a certified letter telling her that she could keep my deposit, but if she came after me for more I would sue her for the entire amount, and the entire amount would be awarded me in court since she was late in her accounting of everything. She could then sue me for damages, but anyway I digress...
Unless you did a self installation of a satellite dish, how could a tenant cause roof damage?
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