I did this before and ended up in court. If you're renting from a property management company (not an uncommon situation), chances are they have counsel, or are perhaps themselves attorneys. They're willing to play chicken.
(We ended up settling to recover the security deposit).
Style note: it might not be the best idea to repeatedly threaten legal action. First, as I learned recently on HN, doing that can create a procedural opportunity for your adversary.
Second, the law is in fact on your side in these cases, and, as I learned when we sued our landlord, the most effective way to win these cases is statutorily: you carefully establish the timeline and the basis for contesting the damage, and if they don't respond properly, they can auto-lose the case and be on the hook for treble damages.
If I found myself in this situation again, I'd send a note emphatically but emotionlessly contesting the damages, noting dates carefully, and send that registered mail. I would not attempt to educate the landlord on landlord-tenant law.
Agree that this letter (as what you have just indicated exactly) is a YMMV for sure.
As a landlord myself I didn't have to even read this letter to know that it would be worth my while to dispose of this problem by paying back the money. My take is "this guy has a lot of time on his hands and I don't".
Otoh, there are others who will fight a battle just for the sake of the battle and there are other battles that I do fight literally just for fun sometimes. It's like a game in a way.
In contrast I had a few commercial tenants (Physician practices) and had to withhold some money on move out for various issues. We wrote a long detailed 3 page letter knowing full well that the Physician wasn't going to take the time to question any of the information that we so completely presented. And they didn't. And we never heard any issues or complaints or a peep about the money that was not returned (we returned some escrow of course).
So once again, in business, it all depends on the circumstances and the particulars of each situation.
One other thing I will point out is in our state an individual can represent themselves in small claims court but a corporation can't. So right off the bat if you are suing a corp you have an advantage their unless they have in house council or want to send a particular message of "don't mess with us".
Great advice. My advice is to figure out a gradual escalation path with the legal option as the final (and unsaid) last step. Leave it unsaid because people will lawyer up the moment legal action is brought up and it short circuits any less adversarial (and expensive) escalation options.
I've been in a few difficult situations like this and was able to solve all these situations without threatening legal action simply by walking up the escalation path, saying what I was going to do and then doing it.
For example, I had a situation with a prospective landlord while I was in college who simply kept asking for more and more documentation while considering our application to rent (it was a largish apartment complex). After 5 visits, during which yet some new required document was needed, my wife and I decided to cancel the application and go elsewhere. I went in, told them we've decided to stop being jerked around and cancel the application, I simply asked for all of my information back (since it was sufficient for an unscrupulous landlord to commit identity theft on us). They refused.
So I started escalating.
- I found the parent company they worked for and sent a few (physical) letters requesting our information back.
- Then I filed a complaint with the BBB. This initiated a mediation procedure where the BBB contacts the landlord and tells them they're about to get a complaint and if our single criteria isn't met this complaint will reflect negatively on the apartment complex. The BBB is not a big thing, but lots of people do use it as a reputation marker and mediator. They didn't comply and got the negative complaint.
- I wrote another letter to the parent company and the landlord informing them of this escalation and again confirming our demand for our material.
- I contacted the county Consumer Protection Agency (not all counties have one) and filed a complaint and my demand for the return of our material. I again sent letters to the landlord and parent company informing them of this and providing them with copies of my correspondence with the CPA.
- I then escalated to the State Corporation Commission. Asked how to file a complaint and spent some time dealing with that bureaucracy, but eventually finding the right department. I filed the complaint, notified the offenders again. A couple weeks later the SCC contacted me back and said they'd received several complaints about the same place and about similar unscrupulous behavior and would be taking action against the landlord. They asked what I was looking for, I told them "just our application materials" and they were like "oh, is that all? that should be easy".
Two weeks later a package arrived in the mail with our stuff, not a single page missing. I contacted the parent company, landlord CPA and SCC to inform them the matter had been resolved.
It took a lot of time, but it kept options open to me and put the legal fight in other parties' hands. Going to the SCC instead of my lawyer, I found out that others had been in a similar situation and it aggregated and amplified my argument and rallied consumer protection law to my side instead of me going it alone. It also helped that I kept careful records and dates of every interaction and was able to build a record for the SCC to work off of on my behalf. It took time, but other than postage and paper supplies didn't cost me a penny.
A single hour with a lawyer would have cost me more.
> 9 out of 10 lawsuits in the world are now filed in the United States, which is also home to over 80% of the world’s lawyers
The source the article cites for this says the US has 1.2 million lawyers, so they are claiming the world has 1.5 million lawyers, and that there are only 300k lawyers outside the US. This is wrong:
Everyone in California should be aware of their ability to request a pre-moveout inspection. You do a walkthrough with your landlord a few weeks before moving where they list all defects, which (in theory) gets you on the same page and gives you a chance to fix the damage. They are unable to withhold for anything not on this list (damage obscured by your items and later-occurring damage excepted).
California publishes an easy to read tenants handbook that outlines this as well as many other details of state law. It's well worth the twenty minutes it would take the average HNer to read it over. (also, depending on where you are there may be additional municipal laws covering things like causeless evictions, etc)
Here's a txt that I got two days ago from a tenant who hadn't deposited his rent (due on the 1st) by the 7th. (I waited two days before even saying it was late):
[first he sends a picture of "the money"]
Then this text:
"Omg!!! I totally forgot to go to the bank on Friday and send it. I went to Boston over the weekend and it totally slipped my mind I was going to deposit it before I left for my flight. So sorry!! Don't worry I took a pic of the money so you know. Have it. I will bring it over to [bank name] as soon as I get a break at work. Again super sorry about that.".
So that's the actual text. Sent 2 days ago.
Today it's the 9th. Still no rent. Just texted him again before seeing this post.
In the tenant agreement, consider including an acceptable late payment date, and a fine if not met (depending on local leasing law). My current place says rent is due on the 1st, acceptable to turn in as late as the 3rd (mainly to account for things like office holidays, Sundays when the office is closed, and the like), and any payment made later is subject to a $100 fee.
Having that helps break tenants down into well defined groups, I suspect, and the appropriate remedies; people who pay on time (or nearly; no worries there), people who don't and who end up paying extra (would be a pain, but an extra $100 a month helps with that), and people whose leases should be terminated for non-payment (because they've gone a month without paying).
I've been a day or two late before. I've never been hassled. Unless this guy is r ed gularly late id give him atleast a week before you start bugging him. Your just making enemies imo.
As a landlord with 6 rentals, I would say that this is a good letter.
Videoing the apartment is a good idea too (one I think I will do myself!) to record the state it is before and when you move out.
I usually don't have to claim anything out of a deposit when a tenant moves out, with the exception of the really crazy tenants. Crazy like poo smeared walls and leaving the living room filled with garbage all over the floor, etc. Careful tenant screening is the cure for this problem in the long run.
Every. Single. Landlord. I've leased from has treated the security deposit as a "13th month's rent". The last two places we rented, we even hired our own cleaning service when we moved out. We still got dinged things like $500 to mow the lawn.
I've also had that experience frequently (when I lived in the U.S.), but oddly had very good experiences with large national "corporate" landlords. I'm not usually a fan of dealing with huge national companies over smaller local businesses, but in this area my experiences are more positive with the big ones. When I lived in a Post [1] apartment complex, everything was very professional and above-board, and I got my deposit back in full, quickly. There was a walk-through at move-out with one of the leasing office's employees; the employee said everything looked fine, we both signed the inspection papers, and they returned my deposit the next week. I had even made nail holes in the wall to hang pictures, but their policy (stated at move-in) was that repainting and filling of holes less than dime-sized are routine maintenance for tenants who live there >1 yr.
The only other experience as smooth as that was with an individual landlord (no management company), who by luck happened to be very easy to work with. I paid rent on time and didn't trash the place, and he left me alone and didn't try to take my deposit. This was in a college town, though, so I think I was an exceptionally good tenant compared to what he was used to.
Congratulations. You have better luck than I did, and than my renter friends did. Maybe it's the time period. We bought a house in 2004 (and again in 2005) and haven't rented since.
We also bought a house in '04 and have lived there since; so I would have been renting at the same time period.
People are people; some honest, some dishonest, but geography could have something to do with it as well. We have rented solely in Iowa, and in general I have found that a higher percentage of people (certainly not all) in this region place great value on honesty and personal integrity.
I've always been surprised that landlords routinely return security deposits in full. After a decade of renting in multiple cities, I've always received 100% of my deposit back, even in cases where it probably would've been fair to charge me for some minor things (holes in the wall from hanging things, some small stains, etc).
There are penalties in some cases (the letter in this post says in Georgia if you get caught there's a 3x penalty), but I've never heard of those actually enforced.
In other words, there's a lot of incentive for this to happen all the time, especially since landlords don't have much of an online reputation (like restaurants). The fact that it's rare in the US is a great sign for doing business here generally.
The only time I've ever not had my full deposit back was when it was explicitly stated in my lease that I'd produce a receipt for professional carpet cleaning before I left and I didn't bother to do so.
I think in general landlords look at the "reasonable wear and tear" clauses and consider how tenant friendly the courts are. That claim is pretty vague and it's not really worth their time or the legal fees to deal with someone if they get their back up over a handful of smaller charges.
When I was younger a landlord withheld a deposit from my mother inappropriately, she went to small claims court and won and was given the option of 3x damages (she requested only the original deposit rather than the triple damages for whatever reason, but my understanding is that she was definitely given the option). This was in Massachusetts.
(We ended up settling to recover the security deposit).
Style note: it might not be the best idea to repeatedly threaten legal action. First, as I learned recently on HN, doing that can create a procedural opportunity for your adversary.
Second, the law is in fact on your side in these cases, and, as I learned when we sued our landlord, the most effective way to win these cases is statutorily: you carefully establish the timeline and the basis for contesting the damage, and if they don't respond properly, they can auto-lose the case and be on the hook for treble damages.
If I found myself in this situation again, I'd send a note emphatically but emotionlessly contesting the damages, noting dates carefully, and send that registered mail. I would not attempt to educate the landlord on landlord-tenant law.