[Indecent]

The following took place in Iowa:

I moved into an apartment with 4 friends of mine. My roommate's dad went with us to look and the apartment and also wrote the check for our deposit as our landlord did not want separate checks and none of us had enough money to cover the full amount ($1300).

Upon moving out, we provided our landlord with an address to send our deposit to. If it matters, we do not have a copy of the document we provided for him. After 1 month had passed I contacted him asking about the status of our rental deposit and he informed me that he needed to send the check to the person who wrote the check (my roommate's father). At this point I was informed of several outrageous charges regarding things that were "damaged" in the unit, and began researching the laws regarding rental deposits.

After that, we wrote our landlord a letter stating why we thought the amount withheld was unfair and also stated that we had waited more than 30 days and had received no written contact from the landlord regarding the "problem" with the address we provided him.

My question is whether the address we provided him matters in terms of when the 30 days begins. The address we provided is our new apartment in town, and he claims it can only be sent to the person who wrote the check. He even went so far as to say that we could not take him to court because the person who wrote the check is the only person who could sue him for the amount owed. He stated then that because my friend's father could not testify in court that HE left the forwarding address, so we would not be able to win any amount back. Is that at all true?

Thanks in advance.

[Fr_Chuck]

I will assume Iowa must have some law or rule about refunding a deposit within 30 days.

The issue is not who signed the check, since the check was made on behalf of the people who will now be the respondant

To have a case, there must have been a legal contract ( you had that, and I will assume the lease was in writting) if the lease did not provide actual charges for cleaning, painting or repair of damage, you will have to dispute his claim by providing similar estimates from business as evidence in court.

In your suit, all four of you must sign as respondant, as your evidence you should ( and I know you don't, but you should have taken photos upon renting and upon leaving) but without that you will have to testify,
Most likely he does not have good evidnece of his repair either.

Your roomnates dad may not have to testify, but he could be included as a respondant ( although he really has no legal standing to sue, since he had no contract) But he should for best efect be in court to testify as to the fact he merely gave the money to his son and friends for the rent.
The landlord would have to prove otherwise.

Basically the landlord is a crook and most likely rents to groups of kids and never gives the deposit back and gets away with it, this is normal, many landlords always refuse to pay deposits back knowning most never go to court.

So basically the landlord is a crook and is lying to you. I would send him one last demand letter, signed by all parties. Give him 10 dryas, after that, file a suit in small claims court.

[LisaB4657]

I am assuming that you had a written lease, signed by all five of the roommates, and that the lease required a security deposit. If that is the case then all five of you should file a lawsuit against the landlord for the return of the deposit. It doesn't matter who gave the landlord the check and the landlord knows this. The check was given on behalf of the tenants to fulfill the requirement of the lease and the landlord accepted it.

The landlord's claim that he was required to return the deposit to the person who provided it was a load of garbage. If you had given him US Postal money orders for the deposit, would he have been required to return the deposit to the post office?

The landlord was required to provide the tenants with either the deposit or a written, detailed accounting of the deposit within 30 days after you gave him a forwarding address. He failed to do so. He has no valid, legal defense. File that lawsuit immediately.

[Indecent]

Thanks for the quick replies guys.

I did quite a bit of research on this topic (reading the LL/T laws, other topics, etc etc) and figured I already knew the answer (which you guys confirmed) but he sounded so sure of himself I wanted to get more input before I invested my time (and money for court) into this. Funny thing is the guy mailed a check with the insane deposit with-holdings and told me that I had to cash it, it was the law :)

As long as it doesn't matter which address the check is sent to (and it isn't specified on the lease either, although I don't know if he could do that anyway) I'll send him one more certified letter and then I'll let you guys know how court goes.

Thanks again guys, really appreciate the help.

[Indecent]

Well, I may have hit a snag on this one.

I spoke with my local Fair Housing Agency and she believed that he had some grounds for stating that he needed the address of the person who wrote the check so he would not be held liable if the money never makes it back to them. It was her opinion that he may be able to get away with saying that he could no longer find the original check and did not want to mail it to anyone but the person who wrote the check for liability reasons. From our standpoint, it seems like if he wanted to say that we could either ask why he never contacted us (we were the first to contact him about the deposit). Also, it doesn't seem like that would work because he could never know for sure that the address we provided him was not the current address of my friend's father, the one who wrote the check.

Plus she admits she's not a lawyer and is not supposed to interpret the law but couldn't provide me with any law/rule that was in his favor. She offered it as help from her experience but is by no means 100% correct.

Thanks in advance. (again!)

[LisaB4657]

I'd still file the lawsuit. The worst that can happen is that the judge will agree with her and it will have cost you a filing fee. But on the other hand the judge may see through all of the garbage the landlord's been feeding you and award you a judgment. I say go for it!

[CaptainForest]

I agree with LisaB.

Go for it, file the law suit!

[Indecent]

The wheels are in motion now for the lawsuit and I have one more quick question.

If one of the people who signed the lease now believes that the lawsuit "isn't worth his time" would it still be possible for the rest of us to file the suit? There are 5 of us total, 4 of us would be willing to go to court. His testimony would not be very important to the case as he has had no contact with the landlord. Any chance we could still win this one in court?

[excon]

Hello Indecent:

You've gotten very good advice.

(1) I don't believe that all of you have to be co-petitioners. (2) Young Lady, in the future, please do not get your legal advice from bureaucrats. (3) I hate landlords who rip off people. Kick his butt.

excon

[Cvillecpm]

I disagree... by law, the deposit goes to whoever made/provided the deposit.

I often have the same situation when corporation/business gives deposit for tenant/employee. The deposit goes back to the corporation/business - not the tenant. I make the check payable to the corporation and send it c/o the residents/former tenants.

You should ALWAYS provide your forwarding address to your landlord on an envelope with a stamp for the current postage. I have been requesting forwarding addresses on size#10 biz envelope for years and 90% of the time, a stamp is affixed... no excuse for not having the forwarding address.

If you expected to somehow get a portion of the original $1,300 then you should have gotten the "dad" who paid the money to ASSIGN IN WRITING his right under the deposit to the actual tenants.

... On the date above, I hereby assign my right, title and interest in the $1,300 paid as security deposit on behalf of the lease at X address, your city, your state, your zip for the benefit of Tenant A, Tenant B, Tenant C and Tenant D.

Signature of "Dad".

This is not rocket science and thinking your landlord was going to reimburse you if you did not actually pay the money ORIGINALLY is a serious misunderstanding on your part.

[Indecent]

Thanks for you replies everyone, I appreciate it.

Cvillecpm: Thank you for the detailed post, it's not what I like to hear but its good to know what we are up against.

Just a few questions regarding what you had to say:

Do you think any of that would matter if we weren't contacted at all by the landlord during the 30 days?

Is there any legal precedence for this?(anything I could Google to read more about) IE: Law or statute or legal term for such a requirement or is this just from your experiences?

I understand that the check may need to be made out to the person who originally wrote the check, but does the address the check is sent to really matter that much in a legal sense?

Also, thank you for the advice on assigning the deposit in writing. Hopefully something like this won't happen again but then I can't say I wasn't told the proper way to handle it.

Thanks in advance everyone.

[LisaB4657]

Indecent, file the lawsuit with the people you already have who are willing. As long as at least one person on the lease files you can proceed. Also, try to get your roommate's father (the one who wrote the check) to join in the lawsuit with you. That will cover all bases.

[brooks]

Listen to Cvillecpm, she is right. The other roommate have no legal right to the deposit as it was not theirs. Had the LL mailed the deposit to the tenants, then the dad could make a case for demand of his deposit. The deposit always get return to the person who made wrote the check. It was up to the dad to leave a an address where the deposit could be returned. Absent of an address being given, most LL's mail a letter to the last know address of the tenants. It's possibe that the LL has a copy addressed to the dad at your previous address. Were I your LL I would have mailed it to your present address with the a request that you contact the "dad" for his address.

[Indecent]

I had already planned on taking this to court as it seems like there is a good chance we can win this one.

If anyone is curious as to what a professional says, (don't know if any of you are attorneys or not) read on. I spoke today with a Real Estate Attorney who was highly recommended by the legal team at the company I work for. I explained the situation to him and he said it seems very simple - we provided an address, he didn't contact within 30 days. Doesn't matter who wrote the check, the deposit belongs to the tenants.

I'll let you know how it goes in court - who knows what the judge will think.

[LisaB4657]

It's good to know that a colleague agrees with me. :)

Good luck!