Not paying rent (Jacksonville, Boca Raton, Deerfield Beach: real estate, 2015, apartment)

[Akashmt.83]

Hello all,

I deseperately need someones help here.

I met someone online (a girl) from Texas who moved to Florida. She did not have rental history neither much of credit score. So I helped her out and we both went to a rental community in Boca Raton and got an apartment approved. Since my rental history and credit score was good there was no issue. I am still renting another place and never stayed with her in the apartment we took. She agreed to pay the rent for her apt and once the year ends 2015, she could renew by herself. When we took the apt I paid the initial entire amount as she did not have money.

It's been couple of month only and she texted me couple of days back that she is not able to pay the rent and she got 3 days notice from the landlord (community owner).

I told her I would help her out with remaining amount of $880 and she had to pay $550

She initially said she weird the money but I never got it. Then today she told me she got cash bla bla bla and never gave me any money. Latest reply I got from her was "I am in gym"

Since my name is on the lease and I did not want to hurt my rental history neither credit score nor any legal actions, I decided to go and pay the entire due amount.

Since she is not ready to pay rent and have been using me, I would like to terminate the lease. I talked to the community folks today who told me the amounts I gotta pay to terminate the lease.

My question is that, what would be the best option for me to collect atleast 50% of the amount from her. Should I hire a lawyer? What kinda? Or should I had let the eviction case go to to court and ask judge to settle down?


Please help.. I only tried to help someone out and never expected this to happen.


P.s. I don't have the keys, lease docs nothing. She got all of them.

[cfbs2691]

The landlord should have NO problem getting you a copy of the lease as well as keys.
Your names' on the lease - you have EVERY right to enter the unit at any time.
Use it. Use the pool. You have every right.

It seems small claims court should be an option.

If she gets evicted - you get evicted and it'll show up on your credit score.

Best of luck and I'm sorry you had to learn the hard way to stay away from people with bad credit.
Unfortunately, South Florida is filled with self entitled users like this girl.

[Akashmt.83]

hi there..

yup and i am not going to let that happen. i am either going to terminate the lease by end of this month by paying penalty amount or add a person as room mate (take her name out with her approval and community approval)

good thing was, community management is professional

either way i am going to file up a case at claim court. since both of us on lease.. it has to be 50-50%

it was a great help. i did not know about claim court (never visited a court or police station in entire life) thanks a lot...

[LifeIsGood01]

This is a case of no good deed goes unpunished.

Hopefully it will be a learning experience not to trust a stranger. There is not much you can do. You have to kick her out, whatever legal way you can. Maybe give up your place, change the locks and move in there yourself.

If you would have thought it out you would have known that most likely after a year she still would not have qualified even if she paid her rent, so you would have probably have had to resign the lease or make her leave. Good luck and don't trust strangers.

Maybe you can make a deal with the Landlord to try and find a new tenant, it will be cheaper for him than having to file for eviction.

You can sue her, but you won't be able to collect from her so you will just be wasting your time. Don't hire a lawyer to sue her, but you may need one to force her out of the apartment especially if she is on the lease too.

[dive77mmwet]

yes don't trust any one ! especially in Florida, I would use a attorney as we use our in house guy I have hundreds of prime residential units all over Florida and our attorney is in court every day! The land lord owner has the burden of proof but with basic common sense documents tenants usually never prevail and really never seem to care with judgments and garnishments as that's why we have a full time skip tracer collections agent that gets a major percentage on all collectables and he's really, really good he's like a pit bull on steroids and is a asset of our company, to go to small claims with no prior experience with out a attorney may go south on you so be for warned,,

[CapnTrips]

Originally Posted by so954

You can sue her, but you won't be able to collect from her so you will just be wasting your time. Don't hire a lawyer to sue her, but you may need one to force her out of the apartment especially if she is on the lease too.

Sounds like a waste of time and money to sue her, not to mention a lot of stress and aggravation. You don't need to hire a lawyer to evict her. Once you settle up with the landlord, that's his problem. All he has to do is put her stuff on the curb and change the locks. And call the Sheriff to watch, if necessary.

[8to32characters]

Welcome to South Florida.

South Florida Living, Lesson 1: Never, ever trust a complete stranger, especially one you meet online.

I lived in Boca Raton for a over a decade, so I've got stories up the wazoo about rental and other types of real estate scams I've either heard about from friends and colleagues or experienced firsthand.

I'll have you know that South Florida is "ground-zero" for real estate, internet, and all other types of scams. It's the #1 metro area in the US for identity theft and credit card fraud. More spam-mail and internet viruses are generated and distributed from servers along Glades Road in Boca Raton than anywhere else in the US. The biggest computer crime in US history was executed by a Boca Raton man, Scott Levine, in the early 2000's, when he accessed personal data of millions of people from Acxiom Corp.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

There's so few honest, decent people in South Florida, which is one of the main reasons why I happily left for good years ago, never to look back.

But that's the reason why there's a million attorneys in Palm Beach County, including real estate attorneys, and they all stay in business because of issues like yours. I'd contact one of them to request some legal advice, even if you have to pay for it.

Believe it or not, there are a few posters on the Florida forums who are attorneys at law (Robyn55 comes to mind). I believe she practiced in South Florida for years, too, but now lives in the Jacksonville area.

If you have to take the broad to court, I totally would, and I'd prosecute her broke-ass to the fullest extent of the law. However, you really should have known better than to sign a lease agreement on her behalf, especially if she has limited rental history, poor to no credit history, and you didn't know her from a hole in the wall in the first place.

Why did you do this in the first place? Was there some sort of courtship or relationship going on? Did you ever actually reside in said apartment? There couldn't have been any financial gain because it sounds like you were renting out a managed apartment.

I'm terribly sorry for your misfortune, but hopefully, this is a sobering experience for you with regard to trusting complete strangers, especially in South Florida.

Let me get my girlfriend on the phone -- she and her husband have been landlords in the Boca Raton/Deerfield Beach area for years, and I know they've encountered issues like this in the past. I'll explain your story to them and ask them how you should proceed and what you can expect from the property management company. They may also have recommendations with regard to real estate attorneys.

I'll follow up with you. In the meantime, hang in there and best of luck.

8to32

[ourfamily3]

Not to hijack your thread (sorry in advice).


So anyway we are moving to FL in about a year and were looking to rent an apt for a while until we can buy a home. So my question is when we go about renting since I am super paranoid, and don't want to hire a realtor. Renting an apt from Craiglist how do we make sure it is not a scam?

Do we ask the "renter" for ID and prove that he is indeed the owner or the representative for the place?
Will we sound completely crazy? Over-board? and well it is since we are not from Florida and we don't know how things work and afraid of losing are money we have worked very hard for.

What's your advice about renting through craiglist?

My husband will leave a month in advice and staying with some family members so he will be able to see it in person before renting.

TIA

[aridon]

Why don't you want a realtor?

[BVG_Steve]

unlikely you will find anything worthwhile on craigslist anyway that is not listed with a realtor, unless you are looking for a ghetto type apartment as those realtors rarely take