My boyfriend, a roommate and I started renting a home in February 2006. The house was a disaster but the landlords insisted we move in ASAP and the repairs would be completed within a couple of weeks. To make a long story short, the repairs were never done and our roommate decided to pack up and leave with hardly any notice. My boyfriend and I had to leave the property as well because we could not afford the rent between the two of us and we could not find a roommate willing to live in those conditions. We did not sign a lease, but ended up breaking our "implied" lease because we were unable to give 30 days notice. We vacated the property by August 30th, 2006. Our landlords took us to court for September's rent, but did not show up and the case was dismissed. We paid them a security deposit of $500 back in February, and have not recieved it back, nor have we gotten in writing any deductions for "damages", etc. It has been over 45 days at this point, and we have heard nothing. If I am reading correctly, Virginia state law states that we are entitled to the deposit money in full because they neglected to make deductions or return our money in 45 days.

Here is a link to the section of the Code of Virginia regarding security deposits.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp...od+55-248.15C1

Will I be able to get my security deposit back and be finished with this nightmare?

ScottGem

You read the law correctly. But being entitled and collecting are two different things. I suspect the landlord decided to forget about suing you and just keep the deposit.

If you want the deposit back, you will have to file suit against them. If you win, which is not entirely a given since you did break the lease by not giving sufficient notice, You will then have to collect which means finding some asset of theirs to attach.