DH and I purchased our first home last December; previously, we had shared a 1 BR apartment. The apartment itself was about 10 years old by the time we moved out; we had been there for just under 5 years. The apartment was attached to a townhome, where our landlord lived. Landlord was/is also a real estate agent, and we used his services to purchase our new home, which happens to be right next door to our apartment/his townhome-- so we are still neighbors.
For the entire time we lived in the apartment, we had a wonderful relationship with our landlord-- he would often come by our apartment to chat, and over time we came to consider him a friend as well. He and his family were invited over (and came) for dinner numerous times, even for Christmas Eve with our family on two occasions. We went out of our way to do a little "extra" here and there, too, just to be nice and neighborly (we would occasionally shovel out his parking space when it snowed, as he parked right next to us; I'd bring him cookies if I'd happen to be baking, etc). We even invited him and his partner to our wedding, and they accepted our invitation.
The whole time we lived there, though, we never got a return invite for dinner or anything like that. The only invite we ever got was to his daughter's 16th birthday party, which we did attend and gave a card with a check as a gift. Basically, he never really reciprocated our generosity other than with his company, but honestly, we didn't mind or even notice at the time. Throughout the process of helping us buy our home, he frequently commented how he was losing his best tenants; we really and truly got along very well.
So, fast-forward to us buying the house. We closed on the house on December 10th and were officially moved out of the apartment by December 17th, and of course our rent was paid in full for the entire month of December. The apartment was re-rented at the beginning of January. We hadn't broken any leases by moving out-- in actuality, I had never even signed a lease in the first place. I had asked him about it when I moved in, he said he'd get around to printing one up but never did. I had, however, paid a security deposit up front, equal to one month's rent.
We left the apartment very clean when we moved out. There were two very small sections of damaged wall which we had repaired ourselves prior to moving; both were not in prominent locations and the repairs were indistinguishable from the rest of the walls. We also accidentally broke an exterior light fixture when moving out, which would have cost no more than $30 to replace. The carpet was also fraying where it met up with the kitchen linoleum, but it was easily fixable-- and besides, the carpet was 10 years old and beginning to show wear anyway.
We continued to be "chummy" with our landlord after we moved, but we didn't hear anything more about the security deposit. I fully expected him to keep some of it, at least for the damaged light fixture, but I also expected that we would at least get a chunk of it returned... and as first-time homeowners, every penny counts, you know?
A couple of months went by, still no word about the deposit, and it began to grate on my nerves-- because as well as we got along with our former landlord, we also knew he was a real "cheapskate," too. One day I finally decided that it was stupid to be stewing over it; maybe he just forgot, maybe it was an innocent mistake. So I called him, and very pleasantly asked "if there was anything left" of the security deposit.
To which he answered, no-- it had gone towards repainting and replacing the carpet.
I told him that I would need to receive some sort of invoice detailing where the charges had gone to; he said he would get this to me. This conversation took place over 6 months after we had moved out-- and to this date, over a YEAR after moving out, we haven't gotten a thing in writing from him.
So, my question is this-- isn't repainting considered standard practice before re-renting an apartment? We didn't smoke inside EVER, hadn't painted it ourselves in some weird color, thus neccessitating a repaint other than for routine purposes... As for the carpet, it was 10 years old and by that time, was about due for replacing anyway. What on earth does one pay rent for, if not to offset the routine wear and tear of an apartment?!
The law in our state is that a landlord must return the security deposit in its entirety, OR a portion of it, accompanied by a written breakdown of what the deposit was used for, within 30 days of moving out. If not, the landlord is not allowed to retain ANY of the deposit and must return ALL of it to the tenant. The tenant is legally allowed to go to court to receive double the security deposit if they so wish. For the tenant to pursue this, they must have provided the landlord with written documentation of their forwarding address, which we did not do, but for goodness sake, HE was our real estate agent, and we moved RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
I know that, in the interests of being a good neighbor, I should probably just let this drop, but every time I see him, I'm so irritated that I can barely be civil. I feel like we were taken advantage of, and he saw us as another way to save an extra couple bucks. On some strange level, we do miss his company and I wish we could just settle this and go back to being friendly neighbors, but at this point I don't know if that's possible.
Sorry this was so long... but what would you? Help me out with something I haven't already thought of...
nfllifer
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