[volkl48]

The rich can afford expensive lawyers who require an airtight case to prosecute successfully. They also violate the law in much more convoluted schemes that require a lot of work to be able to piece together a case that a jury will understand and believe.

The poor have a shitty public defender who advises them to plead guilty even if they aren't, and if they committed a crime it's likely something simple and straightforward to explain and prove.

[HarryHirsch]

It's worse than that. I'm currently waiting for my former landlord to return the security deposit. The law insists that it be returned within a certain time with an accounting, otherwise there are punitive damages; the punitive damages serve to encourage the landlord to be honest in his dealings.

The clock has run out, but my lawyer advises against against asking for damages. Looking at the law, it should be a slam-dunk deal, but apparently the district judge is sufficiently corrupt not to be trusted.

It's not my job to school the landlord to be honest, and since there are no consequences for bad behaviour they will be dishonest and will continue to cheat students and other out-of-towners out of what is rightfully theirs. That, friends, is the reality in the US: groups of the population have good reason to believe that the legal system is not working for them.

Recently, a political TV program commented on the Brazilian election - on one side is a fascist, on the other a representative of party so corrupt that it's unelectable. The situation is approaching a civil war. In the US it's not quite as bad as in Brazil, but it's getting there.

[tptacek]

I think your lawyer is not good at their job. It's likely if you took your landlord to court, it'd take 12-18 months (during which you'd do nothing and incur minimal expenses waiting on the court calendar), and then, before you got to trial, your landlord would offer to settle for 50%.

The case itself, hit or miss, but 50% > 0%.

My big lesson from taking landlords to court is that the security deposit is a negotiation.

[HarryHirsch]

No, the law is not good at its job. This is in a small college town, it's a large property administration company that looks after ~ 100 investment properties. From what I hear, they habitually do not return the deposit. This shouldn't happen.

How much are you willing to bet? The demand letter is in the mail, if the money doesn't show up next Friday the matter will end up at the qadi's.

[tptacek]

All landlords habitually don't return deposits. I have rented cheap apartments and expensive apartments and houses and vacation rentals, in college towns (Ann Arbor) and all over Chicago and San Francisco --- all places with good tenants unions. In SF, I paid up front my whole year's rent. I have never, ever had a landlord return a security deposit. Not once.

Landlords expect you to come at them for the deposit. If you don't, it's a 13th month rent. The serious renters just treat the deposit as their 12th month rent, but if you didn't do that, or care about your reference, you sue for it.

IANAL let alone your L, but at this point, in my 42nd year of life, if I don't get my security deposit back, I drop a buck fifty and put a suit in process, fully expecting the landlord to whine at me and then start the actual negotiation.

[runako]

Wait is this really a thing?

I've rented in 5 cities across the US. I have never once had to even ask for my security deposit to be returned. It's just assumed that I would get it back, and I do.

In the cities where I've lived, I've never heard of anyone not getting their security deposit back. I honestly had no idea we were so lucky!

[FireBeyond]

Really. I have busted my apartment complex having "pre-written" the move out report, complete with thousands of dollars of cleaning "required", before we had the inspection. They just made the mistake of leaving it on the PM's desk in sight of me.

[tptacek]

It is really a thing. You've been super lucky. After my first apartment, we started hiring cleaning services to do a pre-move-out clean, which, in retrospect, was pretty stupid, because the condition of the apartment's got nothing to do with anything.

[thrower123]

As somebody who is a landlord, albeit far from the bay area, I've never seen any tenant that expected the security deposit back. Usually, they break the lease before the lease terms are up, and want to have the security deposit applied as last month's rent. I've had nondestructive tenants and am a generally over-nice guy, so I usually go with it...

[tptacek]

I rented a house for a week in Michigan this summer --- the whole rent was paid up front --- and the landlord illegally retained a substantial portion of the security deposit. They have the money. Why would they ever give it back if they didn't have to?

[rleigh]

This got so prevalent in England, that the law was changed UK-wide to require all deposits to go into a third-party deposit scheme so that the landlords didn't have possession of it themselves. Any repairs need to be justified and it can be contested. It is a drastic step to take, but when a significant minority of landlords were abusing their privilege, it was I think a reasonable solution.

[tigershark]

Is small court claim not an option in US?

[tptacek]

It is, if your security deposit is below the limit. It's usually 1-1.5x rent.