damage deposit?

[newmommy]

ok,i was having big problems with my landlord ! my apt needed to be painted, the clod water in my bath tub always leaked , my roof in my bathroom leaked, the heater in my bathroom didnt work! my backdoor lock didnt lock!so me and my husband told him these things need to be fixed asap or we are moving out the first of june because we have asked him many of times to get the stuff and we will do it ourself. and nothing was done. so come june first we moved out! he came and cheacked out the place before we left with our last load of things and he didnt say anything bad about the apt. well yesterday i went uptown to the rentalsmens office to collect my damage depoist and they said he claimed it!!!! The landlord said they place need a complete paint job and it was fillty!he was in my apt before i left it was clean! and it needed a complete paint job when i moved in!what do i do?

[Tara]

Not sure there's much you can do but appeal (if you're able to do that). This might be a lesson for you for next time, document everything before you move in to a new place, pictures etc and make sure you have a copy for yourself and the rentalsmen. I've learned my lesson before, I was only screwed once!

[FutureChief88]

Especially if you are to the pint of moving over his lack of respect for his property. What you SHOULd have done was send letters of complaint to the rentalsmen... so it would be on file.. And take pictures of the place. He cant just go in and take the money.. You can ALWAYS appeal it.. as long as you havent missed the cut off date. He has 7 days to make a claim.. and then they usually contact you by mail. You can always appeal.. but i can say from first hand .. it wont do ANYTHING.. unless you have proof! The rentalsmen actually awarded my previous landlord MORE than i had in for damage deposit.. but because they only had a certain amount.. they couldnt give him anymore than that.

Good luck newmommy.. but i will say first hand.. it is a losing battle.

[blueyes]

my land lord tried to take all of mine but i got my movers whick where friends of mine and my mother to come in myold place and check it out.
they all wrote letters to the rentals men, and a friend of mine did a little digging and found out that he did this many times before. Yes he had a camera in my apt. 2 weeks before i moved.he was taking pics of my things packed and stack and he was trying to use it as this is the stuff i left behind. so when i had 6 letters sent to the rentals man all he ended up was the part for the paint for the apt. whick i don't understand why because every apt has to be painted when u move out. i was there for 1.5 yrs. My advice is to take pics when u move in and when u move out and have someone else with u for proof that this is what the apt looked like.

[rhiley_08j]

Know your rights! I can't say this enough. Don't just roll over and take it. Where is the landlords proof? Did you sign anything stating what was wrong when you moved in? Take legal action if necessary.

[FutureChief88]

my land lord tried to take all of mine but i got my movers whick where friends of mine and my mother to come in myold place and check it out.
they all wrote letters to the rentals men, and a friend of mine did a little digging and found out that he did this many times before. Yes he had a camera in my apt. 2 weeks before i moved.he was taking pics of my things packed and stack and he was trying to use it as this is the stuff i left behind. so when i had 6 letters sent to the rentals man all he ended up was the part for the paint for the apt. whick i don't understand why because every apt has to be painted when u move out. i was there for 1.5 yrs. My advice is to take pics when u move in and when u move out and have someone else with u for proof that this is what the apt looked like.

I as well,.. the asked why i didnt take pictures of specific things..we had pics of the house.. not marks on the countertop..cause there werent any. I told them it is pretty impossible to take pictures of something that doesnt exist..I said if i had have known what parts of the apt they were claiming for..i would have taken pics. i had 3 people with me..and had them write statements.. ALSO had a statement from Molly Maid. I had the place professionally cleaned..but they awarded him cleaning? I even had receipts. the thing is..this guy works for a big construction company..and knows ALOT of people. he got estimates from all these places, but they were all his buddies. He was claiming for carpet cleaning in one room..from a company that did NOT guarantee stain removal.. which convinces me that i can use any old place out of the phone book. It says in the yellow pages.. one room.. any size.. no guarantee of stain removal..29.99. I told them i couldnt get an estimate for this work because the place didnt do estimates..so they granted him $171 for carpet cleaning!! Stating that it says in the phone book that places do estimates. HOW are you supposed to get an estimate for a place that you dont have access to any longer..

Rhiley.. covering your butt is key.. But sometimes you dont know what to cover. My last landlord said that i cut the counter up.. i cant take pics of something that is not there when i leave..I never imagined he would say something like that. My fish tank had bubbled one wall.. i had asked him for paint while i lived there to fix it. he just put it off.. So i agreed to painting one wall.. he took me for 5!! and they GAVE it to him. There is only so much you can do. i covered myself as much as possible.. and they still screwed me.

As far as a place being painted.. the tenant that lived there before me..lived there for 7 years. The place had been painted before SHE moved in..and nothing when i moved in.. Yet i had to pay for the paint after a year.
the rentalsmen dont hold landlords responsible for being slum lords.. even tho this is supposed to be one of their roles. Its sickening and disgraceful.

[TrueLine]

Why move into a dump in the first place? There must be other alternatives. There are large rental firms in town that must meet basic requirements. I know some of those places ain't pretty but, they're probably fairly safe to live in.

[donteatrawpotatoes]

Know your rights! I can't say this enough. Don't just roll over and take it. Where is the landlords proof? Did you sign anything stating what was wrong when you moved in? Take legal action if necessary.

The land lord doesn't need proof. you do.

[FutureChief88]

Why move into a dump in the first place? There must be other alternatives. There are large rental firms in town that must meet basic requirements. I know some of those places ain't pretty but, they're probably fairly safe to live in.


The place i lived in was NOT a dump.. In any shape or form. He found little minor things that were wrong with the place.. and because he knows so many people.. he got ridiculous estimates for minor work.

Its landlords that screw you in the long run..

[newmommy]

i8 only moved in there because i lived in barnesville and our car died and i didnt want to be stcuk out in the middle of no wheres with a new born baby and a 1 yr old child with no car!so it was like the last week of feburary and couldnt find a good apt so we took that one! and my other thing is , he said there was a lease to be signed and we NEVER signed a lease, he kept putting it off and off! for why i dont know.

[rhiley_08j]

The land lord doesn't need proof. you do.


Not true, if it goes to court the onus of proof would lie with the landlord. Get a good lawyer and you would win. It is a matter of his word against yours and where he is making the accusations than the onus would lie with him.

[donteatrawpotatoes]

Not true, if it goes to court the owness of proof would lie with the landlord. Get a good lawyer and you would win. It is a matter of his word against yours and where he is making the accusations than the owness would lie with him.
If you escalate the claim from the rentalsman the onus lies on you to prove your innocence. oddly enough, it's supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Not the case. And if you lose in Canadian small claims you'll likely have to pay their legal fees.

[FutureChief88]

And your damage is likely MUCH less than a person would be willing to spend on lawyers and court. Not to mention missing the time at work..

[sanstu]

Why not file a claim in small claims court against both the landlord AND the rentalsman?

[rhiley_08j]

Why not file a claim in small claims court against both the landlord AND the rentalsman?


Exactly!!

[FutureChief88]

well for me.. I admitted to some damage.. which would ahve taken about half of my dam dep.. So it only being $600.. the time and money i would spend on small claims court.. and then to enforce him to actually pay it.. for the additional $300.. NOT worth it. also, you cant file a small claim against anyone if the rentalsmen are dealing with it.. you have to wait for them to make their decision.. in my case it took 9 months.. THEN you can file..

[sanstu]

The problem I am hearing is that the law is not being applied properly by the rentalsman office. Therefore you can advise the rentalsman that you will seek further remedy via the court system. Sometimes it's not about making someone pay but about setting a precedent, therefore paving the way for others that are having their damage deposits withheld by incompetent employees.(in the rentalsman office)

[sanstu]

remove

[newmommy]

it kinda screwed me over! because my landlord in my new apt made arrangements with me to pay some out of my pocket then get the rest 450$ transfered over from the rentalsmens. but now i have to pay 450$ out of my pay next week. i have 2 lil babies and a buch of bills i have to pay too!

[bradorna]

So important to take pics of even a scratch on the floor, wall, appliances etc. I didn't, but I fought back and did won but it took a year or so. Another time quite a few years ago now I even took the lanlord to small claims because he had not turned the damage deposit in and I did win the case but to this day he has never given me a cent. So don't waste time and money on that route if possible. As I mentioned the only thing we can all do now is take pics of every wall, floor, ceiling, light fixtures, closet doors, entrances, windows and the complete bathroom. And make sure you have your camera set to show the dates on each pic. Then go home and download it onto a CD (just in case something should happen to your computer) Be safe, not sorry. They want a face lift on ther apts. let them pay for it not us. We make their mortgage payments for them, the least they can do is maintain the apts. at their own expense.

[CM]

That is a very good idea about taking the pictures bradorna, I wonder if the rentalsman would let you leave a copy of the disc with them so that they know that is the date the pictures were taken. Most cameras will allow you to put the date for any date you want, I could take a picture today and have the date edited to 3 years ago.
I would definitely ask if they would take a copy of the disc and that would definitely protect any tenant. It should almost be mandatory that is it done. Slumlords wouldn't be too happy though would they?

[sanstu]

CM, all you need to do is take the pictures of the apartment, put them into an envelope and mail it to yourself. Do not open when you receive. You now have your pictures date stamped by the federal government.

[FutureChief88]

O leave them with the rentalsmen. I would of course make 2 copies.. But yes you can leave it with them

[newmommy]

it just makes me soo mad. because it seems to me that NO one does anything with the slum landlords. what the city has to start doing is giving these slum landlords a fine if something is not fixed with a time frame. or at least jail time or sumthing to smarten them up. i am imbarassed to bring my firends from halifax down to the northend where i live beacuse of all the slum landlords dont fix up thier places it makes this city look horriable.and the rentalments office dont do crap for us at all. we have the worst rentalsmen. that enought for my rant today lol

[orange]

CM, all you need to do is take the pictures of the apartment, put them into an envelope and mail it to yourself. Do not open when you receive. You now have your pictures date stamped by the federal government.

That's actually a myth...
http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp

I expect it would be looked upon as a point in favour of a person's case, but because a date-stamp can be so easily faked, it can't really be relied upon to hold up in court.

What I would do is this:

Setup an email account with gmail, because it's almost impossible for a user to change the inbox dates in gmail. I wouldn't use hotmail, because they delete all your messages if you forget to login within 30 days :eek:

Then you could email the photos to the rentalsman and the gmail account at the same time. You would probably need to shrink the filesizes for the rentalsman... but gmail accepts large files, so you could do a separate email to yourself with the full sized files.

I don't know if would do better if it went to court, but it's harder to fake at least...

But if I was moving into an apartment where I was really concerned about this issue, I think I would send / drop-off photos on a CD to the rentalsman too, like CM mentioned (if they would accept it).

[sanstu]

[quote=orange;250229]That's actually a myth...
http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp


That site pertained to copyright laws in the US. Mailing photo's to yourself would work fine for proof regarding landlord/tennent issues.

[bradorna]

I personally feel that if the rentalman doesn't accept pics or Cd's at the date you pay your damage deposit and move in then it is time they started. Their office is not that small there that they could not add an additional filing cabint or whatever for this purpose only. Plus when these pics are given to them, the landlord should be required to go into their office and sign an agreement(after being shown the pics) acknowledging that the pics are correct. If he denies they are correct, then the burden should be on him to bring in his own pics. I am almost certain that everyone would agree to let lanlord come into their place and do this even if they have moved in. I am sure I would if it meant I would get my deposit back when the time comes. This is all craziness and way too many people are getting ripped of by these slum lords. There should only be a clear cut "yes" or "no" when it is time to receive the deposit back, and if it is "no" they they better have real proof.