Question for Real Estate Gurus: I bought a house recently and moved out of my rent house. Per my standard TREC rental agreement, the landlords have 30 days to return my deposit. I've emailed them a couple of times and haven't gotten a response. Today is the 30th day and I'm looking at what I need to do if they try to screw me. Anyone dealt with this before? Small claims court? What other damages can I sue for? I'd like to hear some feedback. (yes, I can Google it, yes the house was super clean, and I have pictures).
Under the Texas Property Code, the landlord cannot simply keep your deposit, but you'd have to be proactive on your part. Most importantly, you must provide in writing the forwarding address for which the deposit can be mailed. After that is done, the landlord is required to create a list of all items that are deducted from the deposit. Failure to do so while keeping the money could subject the landlord to 3 times the damages and attorney's fees.
Yeah. I think you're right. Just keep in mind that you MUST have given your forwarding address to the landlord before he is actually liable.
My landlord is a complete b****. She said she would inspect the apt and give the deposit a month later. Somebody had already moved in and I should have seen the problem with her logic. She ended up charging me for **** that I had nothing to do with such as lightbulbs and cleaning fees even though I cleaned the apt. So after a month she returns a fraction of the deposit with all these BS charges. If I wasn't so busy I would have fought her about the way she cheated my roommate and I.
Do you have pictures of everything when you moved out? If so, hit her back with the info in that link I posted.
Ran into this when we moved into our house a couple years ago. Very clearly that the apartment manager was playing games to try and weasel out of returning the deposit. A letter stating that your next move is a lawyer should help. If it doesn't, have the lawyer send the next letter. Also a good move: take thorough pictures of every corner of the apartment when you are leaving - don't allow them to make up BS claims of damage.
