I Hate The Law (Rant)...

[DangerMouse]

So... I moved house recently.

And my own landlord won't pay the deposit back.

He says he's hiring an independant inventory checker to come in... which is interesting as me and the person I lived with never even saw an inventory, let alone signed one!

My options are to go to the small claims court - which has no power to force him to pay so I'd have to hire bailiffs and also pay to have my case heard and possibly for legal advice too.

Which would probably all add up to more than the deposit is worth anyways.

So I'm powerless and the law won't help me.

No wonder landlords (and some tenants) do whatever the hell they want because there's nothing to hold them accountable.

Rant over

 

[Miss Chicken]

Go on Judge Judy, she will sort him out.

That said, do you have a Tenants' Union in your state? If you do they might be able to offer some advice/help.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Dangermouse: Is the deposit a goodly sum? It might be worth your while to try small claims court. My son recently had the same problem with his landlord and so he took him to court. Believe it or not, he DID get his money back. It really might be worth a try. The last thing i would do though is just let it go.. especially if the deposit was a bit of money. Most likely that landlord has been getting away with this for a while. It might be to your advantage to really put up a fight.

In any case, good luck!

 

[DangerMouse]

I don't think we have any of that in England

 

[DangerMouse]

Dangermouse: Is the deposit a goodly sum? It might be worth your while to try small claims court. My son recently had the same problem with his landlord and so he took him to court. Believe it or not, he DID get his money back. It really might be worth a try. The last thing i would do though is just let it go.. especially if the deposit was a bit of money. Most likely that landlord has been getting away with this for a while. It might be to your advantage to really put up a fight.

In any case, good luck!

You're right... but I think it should be a lot easier.

Thanks

 

[Yeoman Randi]

Check into it. Personally i have no idea but you may have something like it. I can't believe there is no recourse for something like this.

 

[RevDMV]

I have no idea about English Law, but in California small claims has the ability to garnish wages and place liens against personal property.

I say the landlord is bluffing, and will cough up the check if a court filling takes place.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I don't think we have any of that in England

oops, I didn't check your location

 

[Pingfah]

To avoid this very problem when I rented I would always just not pay the last months rent.

Let him take you to court if he thinks you've damaged his flat. Otherwise it's all square, assuming your deposit was the same as a month's rent, which it usually is.

 

[Scout101]

That's what i did in my last apartment, as it was a convoluted mess because the building was purchased to turn it into condos. They wanted me to pay in full, with the hope that I'd eventually get my deposit back somehow out of that mess.

Since i was buying a house anyway, and my rental history wouldn't be a problem no matter what (plus they had to rennovate all of the apartments for condo conversion anyway), I just sent a letter telling them that we were moving out at the end of the month, and to consider my deposit my final month's rent. Never heard back, but with how messed up the new company/investor was, I'm not entirely sure I would have heard any differently if i had just left in the middle of the night. Or stayed for free a few months, until they told me to get out. Know people that tried a little of each, the owner didn't seem to press the issue until he was scheduled to rennovate that unit...

 

[RJDiogenes]

Do you have free legal advice hotlines in England? Try something like that. There must be some recourse in this type of situation.

 

[Guartho]

Ask Holdfast to pretend to be an attorney and speak with him. He can pull it off. He has the clothes, he has the real estate experience.

 

[John Picard]

Ask Holdfast to pretend to be an attorney and speak with him. He can pull it off. He has the clothes, he has the real estate experience.

And most likely, the authoritative accent

 

[DangerMouse]

HE'S PAID IT BACK... I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[John Picard]

HE'S PAID IT BACK... I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet! Meet you at the Pub since you're now "rich"!

 

[RJDiogenes]

HE'S PAID IT BACK... I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He probably lurks at TrekBBS and so knew he was doomed.

 

[jamestyler]

Good thing you got it back!

I'm currently in a similar situation. Well, not quite similar... but trapped in a landlord scam. My previous guy was really good (he basically didn't give a crap about any modifications I made, as long as it was clean) until I moved out.

I had two months left o the lease so I paid and waited it out. He'd occasionally get in touch with me to ask if I'd let him in to show people around. No problem. Except he didn't show - even when it came time to hand over the keys, he would never turn up.

I got fed up and mailed him the keys, didn't hear anything back. He called a month ago demanding that I pay the rent since moving out and handing them over. He was fine about it when I mentioned the keys had been sent, asked if he could pick up my spare set (just in case the originals got lost in the mail) and once again any chance of meeting up with him fell through as he'd just not respond to me.

So again, I mailed them. Different company, recorded delivery, they were signed for and accepted. He's since been ignoring me and harassing my mother for several months of rent, holding back the deposit, gettin trapped in a few lies and is now telling her if she doesn't pay, he'll take her to court. He won't respond to my calls or emails.

Worse yet - I went round there. Someone's living there.

 

[Yeoman Randi]

HE'S PAID IT BACK... I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats awesome! Congrats!

 

[B.J.]

I own a house now, but the last three times I had to pay rent they managed to weasel out of paying back the deposit.

The first was the last apartment we lived in. They had come in about a year before we left to replace the thermostat, and ended up moving it from the old location by about a foot. They said they'd come back and fix up the wall and repaint it, but they never did. When they didn't pay back any of the ~$800 deposit, one of the reasons they listed (along with a bunch of other BS stuff I can't remember) was because they needed to repaint the walls.

The next one was just royally aggravating. We were moving out of a rental house, and the move was being paid for by my company. They hired a moving company, who in turn hired another company to pack the house up, who in turn hired a third company to come disconnect the washer & dryer. (?!???!) As anyone who's ever overseen one of these operations knows, I was a bit busy that day, getting pulled in 12 different directions at once, and could hardly pay much attention to any one thing. I discovered the next day that the guy who disconnected the W&D didn't turn off the water completely and it slowly dripped, and that ended up soaking the carpet in the basement and "ruining" it. (It was an indoor/outdoor carpet that had already endured the sewer backing up twice!) The landlord wouldn't pay back the deposit until the carpet was paid for (he estimated $4000 for that crap), and the company that did the disconnecting wouldn't own up to not turning off the water completely because they said I signed off on it. I did sign something, but he asked me to sign it when I was upstairs and very busy, and I thought it was just to say he was done and could go. I ended up just letting the landlord keep the deposit (~$800 again) and severed all ties there, just to get rid of the aggravation. They're 4 states away and I haven't heard from them in 4 years now.
Oh yeah, he also tried to claim a cracked shower door, which was cracked when we moved in.

The last one was another rental house. Again, our deposit was around $800, and they estimated ~$400 to replace a 10'x10' carpet, and the rest went for spraying for fleas (which our pets didn't have) and other non-specified damage. At this point, we didn't care anymore, and figured that any landlord will try find some way of weaseling out of paying back the deposit, but we didn't have to worry about that anymore since we were in the middle of buying a house.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Knock on wood, but I've had fairly decent luck with landlords. Actually with one landlord 'cuz that's all I ever had. The only beef I had was that I didn't get the security deposit back when I moved out of my apartment and they never told me why (I did the best I could to clean the place up). I was so glad to finally own my own house though, I didn't really care.

Although the title of this thread has admittedly caused me to experience severe brain sludge, because now I can't get that stupid song "I Fought The Law" outta my head.