[Trimdr]

I have a rental home that is nothing but a headache -- but that's neither here nor there.

In mid September I had a family look at the house, verbally tell me they wanted it -- Husband said "take that sign down, you have my word."

Two days later I hand deliver the lease to their place of work. They return it completed and signed. I countersign and get their copy back to them. Several conversations took place throughout September, but they never followed through to get me the deposit. Then October 1 arrives and I inform them via phone their rent and the deposit is due. This is when the wife springs it on me that she has a medical problem, but they still want the house. She can’t leave the house, the husband is working overtime and that's why they haven't brought the deposit by. More than once she says they still want the house.

After another week goes by, I start leaving them a message approximately every other day. I also send emails. Approximately once a week they will answer the phone, and only once returned my call, but that was an accident since I didn’t leave a voice mail and they wanted to know who called their cell. Each time I get someone on the phone, I get the health story, but then they have another incoming call, or say their battery is dying, and they just hang up.

I know they have to be out of their current house at the end of October.

During this entire time I kept the house listed.

Yesterday, I get them on the phone again, and they inform me that they told me via email on September 30 that they can't take the house (after they've told me on the phone at least 3 times after October 1 they want it). I never received the email. They did forward it to me today, it was an email written by the husband, sent to the wife, never sent to me until today.

Now their story is they were able to work out something with the mortgage company -- the home they are in is in foreclosure and the mortgage company now will be the landlord.

I'm not a big company, just someone that let a real estate agent present him w/ a deal that included a lease-to-own tenant. When that tenant failed to buy the house at the end of the lease-to-own deal, I now have a home I need to rent out. I've had 4 tenants in that house over three years. Two of them have moved prior to the lease ending.

I'm tired of giving people the benefit of the doubt and these people LIED to me several times.

Is it a waste of time to sue them in small claims court? They live locally and I have their current address. Can I sue them for 1 months rent and late fees? What about the unpaid security deposit?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[LisaB4657]

Once you have re-rented the house, you can sue these people for all of the rent you lost between the time they were supposed to take possession and the time when someone new starts paying rent. You can't sue them for the security deposit since you would've just had to return it to them anyway.