You moved out of a rental property and left it spic and span clean. Not just spotlessly clean, but in even better condition than it was when you moved in. You couldn’t believe that your landlord kept your entire security deposit. Every. Single. Penny. You knew that there was no question that you deserved a close to a full security deposit refund. Even though you knew you should get most of your security deposit back, when your deposit was wrongfully taken, maybe you didn’t know what to do or have the time to do it. Is it too late to fight back now? Have you kissed your security deposit goodbye forever?
Moving is not easy. There’s so much to do and so much to remember. Packing up the old place. Hiring movers or recruiting friends to help with the move. All the heavy lifting and hard work of the actual move. Then all the work that goes into getting settled into the new place. Whew! I’m nearly exhausted just from thinking about it. Is it any wonder that when you are dealing with moving to a new home, fighting with an unscrupulous landlord who kept your security deposit refund might not be an immediate priority?
Let’s say you moved out of the place you rented not quite a year ago and even though you left the place in really good shape with very little, if any damage, the landlord kept your whole security deposit. When this happened, maybe you were distracted by all things involved with moving and just didn’t have the time to try to get your money back. Maybe, if you had not yet found the fab ProTenant Agency website, you didn’t even realize that your landlord wrongfully kept your security deposit refund. And then yesterday (or perhaps just a few minutes ago), you found us. And as you read more info, you heard choirs of angels sing or, at a minimum, you heard cash registers ring. Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Because after reading you realized that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance you could get your money back. Could it really be? Bet your bottom rent dollar, it could be.
While it is preferable to raise an objection or dispute regarding deductions from or withholding of your security deposit when it happens, most states permit tenants to bring a claim to recover their security deposit for up to a year after the landlord wrongfully deducted from or kept the entire security deposit. Each state has something called a statute of limitations which provides for the maximum amount of time you have to start legal action by filing a lawsuit against someone who has wronged you . While most states permit you to do this for at least one year after the wrong action, other states permit you to take action up to three years later or even longer.
Once you research and determine that you are still within the time period to pursue a claim against your landlord for wrongfully keeping your security deposit refund, unless you are less than a couple of weeks away from the deadline to file a lawsuit, your first step should be to send a demand letter to your former landlord. A good demand letter should contain a clear statement of your claim, the reasons (or evidence that you have) that support your claim, and a demand of what you want in order to resolve your claim. It is also helpful to provide a deadline by which your former landlord must respond in order to avoid having you initiate legal action against her. (If you don’t have the time or you would like to avoid the hassle involved with writing your own demand letter, we can help. Check out our packages here https://protenantagency.fairness4tenants.com/our-services/.)
If your landlord responds, you will likely go through a period of negotiating a resolution you can both live with. Make sure that you have identified and calendared the statute of limitations date by which you must file a small claims court lawsuit. Under no circumstance, no matter how promising any negotiations might seem, should you get within three days of that deadline. Always be on the safe side when it comes to protecting your rights. If you file the small claims court lawsuit and you later reach an agreement, you can always dismiss it. On the other hand, if you miss the deadline to file, poof – your claim is gone. What’s the likelihood that at that point your landlord decides it’s not necessary to continue negotiations and not necessary to return any of your deposit? I’d say the chances are very, very high. Which means you didn’t kiss your security deposit goodbye forever!
In the very near future, we’ll have a blog post that discusses the small claims court process. We’re also working on a blog post that will give you helpful strategies for presenting a winning case. In the meantime, we’d love to hear from you. Have you been victimized by an unscrupulous landlord? Have you had a former landlord try to steal your security deposit by making bogus damages claims? How did you handle it? Did you walk away or fight back? What was the final outcome? We love hearing stories of tenant victories!