need some help

[lmilucci65]

I live in the state of Flordia my husband is military and we had to moved in april .. we had rented from a co-worker of mine not a friend as I now know there was a verbal agreement of the military claus. he claimed damages to the house sent me a list with copies of the bills and was trying to make us pay is home owner fees also... I answer his letter back with a different amount ... a about a week later I got a second letter from him and you could tell I had made him mad because it was like a child saying nananananan now you ow me for the last two months of rent and he added over 400.00 dollars to the amount in the first letter I received from him.. and we have been out of the house since april just to get him to stop making threats and harssing me by phone and to get rid of the stress from this I am thinking about just paying him the amount that I have the receicpts for .....another thing I need a little help on is this the first letter I got from him was in May and now almost two months later he is now going from 1000.00 to almost 4000.00 can someone plese give me some advice do I just need to wait on a court date or answer his second letter

Since he has already started a court action, do not have further contact with him. You should countersue him for the return of your deposit and any excess penalties your state may have. (Some states require up to 3x the deposit returned if a LL does not return the money within a specific time.) You should prepare for court and be sure to attend the hearing. Have his lists of damages that he sent you and plan on disputing each item on his list. For the extra rent he wants, be able to show the orders from your husband's tranfer. (There is a law that says he must allow you out of a lease if you are transferred for military purposes - look up soldier's & sailor's relief act.) For damages to the house, either be able to dispute that you did not cause the damage, that it was not damages but was wear & tear on the premises, oir that his repair cost is incorrect. If carpet was damaged, ask him to show where he depreciated the cost so you pay only for the useful life of the carpet left. Plan to dispute each item on those letters. Please post specifics on damages to get further info on how to dispute them.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Since he has already started a court action, do not have further contact with him. You should countersue him for the return of your deposit and any excess penalties your state may have. (Some states require up to 3x the deposit returned if a LL does not return the money within a specific time.) You should prepare for court and be sure to attend the hearing. Have his lists of damages that he sent you and plan on disputing each item on his list. For the extra rent he wants, be able to show the orders from your husband's tranfer. (There is a law that says he must allow you out of a lease if you are transferred for military purposes - look up soldier's & sailor's relief act.) For damages to the house, either be able to dispute that you did not cause the damage, that it was not damages but was wear & tear on the premises, oir that his repair cost is incorrect. If carpet was damaged, ask him to show where he depreciated the cost so you pay only for the useful life of the carpet left. Plan to dispute each item on those letters. Please post specifics on damages to get further info on how to dispute them.

Liist below are the damages he claimed from the first letter and that I have copies of receipts he sent
Carpet cleaning 140.00
de fleaing 50.00
homeowners fees 99.13
grass cut 50.00 no receipt
repairs 50.00 no receipt
carpet replaced 1364.63
Second letter
Carpet Cleaning 250.00
repairs 200.00
Grass cut 75.00

You should be sure to dispute the 2 different carpet cleaning charges. Why would it be more in the second letter than the first? The carpet would have only had to be cleaned once if you hadn't done it upon leaving. Ask to see the receipt. The de-flea costs would be legit if you had a pet. If your lease didn't list that you were responsible for the homeowner's costs, you aren't responsible for those. Why would it cost more to cut the grass on the second letter? If you had vacated and gave apopropriate notice, and you left the grass at a reasonable height when you left, why are you responsible for those costs at all? Ask for receipts and the dates the lawn was mowed. If it was mowed after you left, ask for photos (proof that it needed mowing when you vacated).

Undocumented repairs are a big no-no. All deductions from your deposit must be itemized in such a way that you know what it is being deducted for. (This is law in most states.) From an unlisted and undocumented charge like "repair $50" it is too vague for you to know what it is. This charge is bogus. Dispute it since you had no way to know what it was.

The carpet charge is also wrong. First, why would you have 2 different amounts for carpet cleaning if they had to replace the carpet? How can you be charged to clean the carpet AND replace it? One or the other, but definately not both! And if carpet was damaged beyond cleaning because of something you did, he must only charge you the depreciated value of the carpet based upon it's age and the length of time he uses on his IRS Schedule.

For instance, the IRS allows a LL to depreciate a new carpet installed in a rental for a period of 5-10 years. For that period of time, we take a fraction of the total cost off our taxes each year. If a carpet is ruined, it is only worth a fraction of what it was worth when it was new, depending on how old it was. The worth of the carpet is based on its remaining life left in that carpet. If a LL uses 7 years to depreciate a carpet, and that carpet is ruined after 3 years, it has 4 years of life left in it. It is only worth 4/7 of what it was worth new. If it cost $700 when it was new, it is only worth $400 now and that is all he can charge a tenant with. Some LL's use the replacement cost to figure this if the original cost is missing. That is not the correct way to calculate this, but some judges have allowed LLs to use the same fraction of worth (4/7 of the replacement cost). I am guessing that the amount quoted to you is the total cost to replace the whole carpet. What you need to know is how old that carpet was when you moved out. Was it new when you moved in? How old was it then? How long did you live there? Figure out how old the carpet was, and we can calculate how much of that amount you would really owe IF you damaged the carpet beyond cleaning.

[lmilucci65]

since we moved my husband is now deployed and I am having to deal with all of this by myself if I am served court papers and with both of us being on the lease can I asked the court for a date that my husband will be back in the states thank you again for your help I feel now that I have a chance to prove him wrong

If you are served, you should immediately contact your husband's base. There are legal protections and legal aide for soldiers stationed overseas. They may be able to rpovide you with more help. If not, you could ask the court for an extention based on your husband's deployment. They judge may grant you one. If you are served, you should file an answer with the court quickly, ask for the extension of time, and dispute each of the charges on the statements you recieved. Good luck.

My boyfriend recently moved out of a house he rented for a little over two years. The landlord was hell, he had bad piping causing the gas company to shut off the gas every month when they would get a meter read. He sent the deposit deductions back and is charging $2000 plus keeping the original deposit of $900! He deducted $736 to repaint his house, which he never repainted the entire time the lived there. He also deducted $1026.75 for carpeting the master bedroom and living room. I called and got an estimate for a 1300 sq ft home to recarpet with middle level carpeting, the est. was $750. The space he recarpeted was incredibly less that that. I requested a figure from him to determine the useful life of the carpet; no reply. Can he do this?!
-Confused in New Mexico

If the house had been painted (inside) before the BF moved in and needed repainting at the end of 2 years, the BF could be charged a prorated amount for painting. A paint job should last 3 years. So he may have to pay 1/3 of the painting costs if it had to be repainted because of something the BF did or didn't do (and was supposed to). Was there a problem with the paint?

The same with the carpet. If the carpet was ruined because of dirt or stains or some other problem attributed to the BF, the LL can charge him a depreciated cost for the carpet. Was there a problem with the carpet? If so, the correct way to depreciate is to take the current age of the carpet (at least 2 yrs old now, how old was it at move in?) and subtract that from the number os years the LL uses on his Schedule E depreciation for the IRS (normally 5-10 years) to get the useful life left in the carpet, An example:

2 yr old carpet, LL uses 10 yrs for depreciation, carpet cost $2000

10-2 yrs = 8 yr of remaining life left
tenant pays 8/10 of the carpet cost
2000 x .80 = $1600 to be charged to tenant

Of course, this is just an example to show how depreciation works. You need to know the age of the carpet and the cost of the new carpet to calculate your BF's correct charges.

You said you sent a letter to inquire. You need to send a challenge letter, challenging each item individually. State why each charge is not correct and how the correct charge should be figured. Send it certified. rrr, and keep a copy. Tell the LL to contact your BF within 10 days. Then file suit in small claims court if you believe you have been wrongly charged.

I have a letter from the landlord saying all we needed to do was putty and paint the room, but when we referred to the lease it said to only putty so we didnt paint. Also with the carpet, he told us all we had to do was shampoo it so we had that taken car of, and he is still charging us for two rooms. Which is fine but even with expensive carpet, the two (small) rooms wouldn't have been $1100 without taking into consideration depreciation. This guy is such a headache. Thanks for the advice!

Originally Posted by lmilucci65

since we moved my husband is now deployed and I am having to deal with all of this by myself if I am served court papers and with both of us being on the lease can I asked the court for a date that my husband will be back in the states thank you again for your help I feel now that I have a chance to prove him wrong

Was the lease in your name or your husbands name? If just your husband, some states require that the person suing present an affidavit that the person being sued is not in the military. At least you should be able to put it off until he gets back.