Landlord won't give us our deposit: What legal action do I need to take?

[seekinghelp]

My husband talked to the landlords daughter since the landlord is deaf but she can read lips really well. The daughter agreed that we could start moving in on the 8/23/10 with 800.00 of security deposit that we gave her on 8/12/10 and give her the rent 1275.00 on 9/01/10. We started moving in on the 23rd, sleeping in our old apartment because we paid for the whole month of Aug. On the 26th of Aug we slept there the night, and the next day (8/27) she comes knocking on our door to give her the rent. I told her rent wasn't due till the first and she said no it was due that day since we slept the night. Cops we're called because she became very aggresive and wanted us to move out in one day. The cops said that in the state of Florida if we paid deposit we can stay even if we don't pay the rent for 6 months. Our intentions we're never to do that, we decided we did not want to rent a house from someone that did business like that so we asked for our deposit back and we moved out on the 8/27/10. We held on to the keys since she said she was not going to give us the deposit back. I paid for the plumbing since she said she was going to deduct it from my rent. I have prove of it in texts and the lease. Can I get my deposit back? She is claiming that we ran up her water bill to 400.00 the one night we stayed there. Which is impossible since we only slept there and took a shower in our old apartment. What legal action do I need to take to get my money back?

[AFFA]

I wish to inform you that you may file a suit for recovery of security amount from landlord. In this regard, you may first give a written notice to the landlord and if the landlord still does not pay then you may file a suit. In this landlord may deduct any damages or loss caused to the landlord after providing you details of the same. If there is a disagreement regarding water bill then you may ask the landlord to prove as to how $400 was spent on water in a single day. The landlord has 15 days to return security deposit under Section 83.49 of Florida Statue 83. Further, the landlord has 30 days to impose any claim. If the matter is not resolved by the landlord, this case will be filed in the Small Claims Court.

AFF

As usual, AFFA hasn't a clue. You agreed to rent the place. Ignoring the rent dispute for a minute, you had a contract to rent.

If it was VERBAL, your agreement would be a month to month agreement. In order to end this agreement, you have to give written notice to vacate the unit and terminate the agreement. In FL, this notice is 15 days notice. You took possession of the property on the 23rd. It doesn't matter if you slept there then or not. You had possession and had belongings in the unit. You would owe rent for the period when you had possession. On the 27th, you gave notice that you wished to terminate. Did you do this in writing? Even if you had, you would owe rent for another 15 days from that date. You would owe rent through September 11th. That would be 19 days of rent that you would owe this LL. 19/30 of a month's rent ($1275) is $807.50. Since you only have a $800 deposit, you would owe her $7.50. You would have no money due to you.

If you had a WRITTEN lease, you may not terminate it at all. LLs in FL are not responsible to look for or find a new tenant. Once you sign a lease in FL, you are on the hook. Expect to have to continue to pay rent. If you terminate, you will still be held responsible for the rent, advertising costs, agent fees if she uses one to find a new tenant, and any other unreimbursed costs (like water bills).

Either way, you're not getting the deposit back since you owe the LL rather than the other way around. You can't simply terminate a contract to rent just because you have a dispute with the LL.