We lived in an apartment and when we moved out we got charged around $1200 for painting, a reletting fee for moving out early (there was already someone on a list to occupy our apartment as soon as we moved) and misc charges. However they never tried to contact us about any of these charges and just sent it to a collection company. Do you have to be notified before they turn it over to collections? We left them our forwarding address and they had our phone numbers.

We lived in an apartment and when we moved out we got charged around $1200 for painting, a reletting fee for moving out early (there was already someone on a list to occupy our apartment as soon as we moved) and misc charges. however they never tried to contact us about any of these charges and just sent it to a collection company. Do you have to be notified before they turn it over to collections? We left them our forwarding address and they had our phone numbers.


No, they don't have to notify you - they can just turn it over. Usually they DO contact you because you might pay and save them money but large complexes may not bother.

Or else for whatever reason they don't want to deal directly with you.

You say that they never contacted you about this money that they charged. I'm assuming you gave a security deposit on the apartment; weren't you wondering what happened to it? I don't know what state you're in, but a lot of states have a deadline for a landlord to send a tenant either their security deposit in full or an itemized statement detailing what was taken out of the deposit and the reason.

And no, they do not have to contact you to turn you over to a collection agency. You can try to dispute the amount and they may settle for less

How do you know you were charged if they gave you no notice?