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My landlord kept my security deposit and now I'm headed to small claims
I lived in the house for 2 years. It became increasingly difficult for me to get repairs attended to. I signed a lease at the beginning of Aug for Sept '11 through Sept '12. In the middle of August we had standing water in the bathroom sink that he had been promising to get to for weeks. I finally got fed up and told him I was going to put the rent in escrow and call for an inspection. Two days later there was a for rent sign in the front yard. We were bombarded with insulting accusations of unlikely behavior (drunkenness, domestic abuse etc... ) and told that we needed to vacate because we had no lease. We appeared in court on the eviction and the court found against him with prejudice. We asked to be let out of the lease and we moved out October 31st. We played everything by the law. We paid on time, sent correspondence in written form, got return receipt for mail. He did not respond to requests for a walk through. We took plenty of pictures, got several witnesses to walk through and waited the 21 days for our security deposit of 1550.00 to arrive. On day 22, we received a bill that indicated that we owed an addition 7 grand due to the deplorable condition that we left the home in. Here is the problem. We don't have a physical address for this man to take him to court. We will find him. But this is taking far more of my time than I anticipated and I would like to sue him for more than the 1550. I know that this amount can be doubled because he took 1 day too long to send us an explanation of why he was retaining the security deposit, but what about everything else?
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Hello S:
Go to the tax department of your county. The abstract of the house you rented should show the present address of the owner. If you can't find him, there's a way to PUBLISH your lawsuit in your local paper for several editions and that will suffice as service. Check with your local court to see if you can do this. excon |
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I am assuming you live in CA. California Civil Code Section 1950.5 provides that within 21 days of a tenant vacating the property the landlord must either give the tenant the full refund of their security deposit or give them an itemized list of deductions. The landlord may deliver the refund by mail postmarked by the 21st day that the tenant vacated the property.
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You have a address for him at or from the first court hearing, where he lost. You should have an address to where rent money was mailed. And the property tax department should show the address the house tax bill is mailed to.
Those would be good addresses to use for service. When you win and he refuses to pay, do you have a plan? |
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We live in MN. We always paid to a PO box and the court papers we were served with had the same PO Box. We were able to find his home address and sent it there but he won't accept certified mail and he winters in a warm location. I hoping we will be able to do the local paper posting because it would be AWESOME! Ooops, think my stress is starting to ooze out...
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Originally Posted by LILL
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I think LILL is right. If the itemized statement was postmarked within the 21 day window, then the landlord complied with that part of the law.
Whether the charges are valid or not, is a matter for a court to decide. If the landlord is lying about damages and fraudulently charging for things that are not valid, that is a different matter. The OP can and should bring suit for that. As for where to send a summons, send it to the PO box. That is the address provided by the landlord. If he doesn't respond then she gets a default judgment. |
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If you have the Sheriff's department serve him,(which is the best thing to do) you may request that they try to locate him. But first try the clerk's office and look for deed records or tax records to secure and address. You have the upper hand here. But do everything you can to make sure it all goes in your direction. One undotted I or uncrossed t can blow the whole thing. Good Luck
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