Problems Getting a Return on Rent Depisit?

one time we moved into a place and instead of a deposit, there was a "non-refundable cleaning fee." so naturally we didn't clean the place at all upon moving out... we paid the cleaning fee! so then they sent us a bill for cleaning the apartment.

nb. i do not recommend this very bizarre course of action

I'm guessing her deposit is more like 3k.

Definitely contact the Rent Board. I don't know anything about NYC rent laws but you seem to have a case.

From some of the shenanigans I've seen, it's clear that some property owners have never even consulted the laws that protect renters.

what bugged me was that this guy had done and probably continues to do this to everyone in his building (he said to me: "don't tell me what i can do, i've been doing this for 50 years!"), many of whom are poor and/or don't speak english well. so i felt like he was taking advantage of them. sucks.

in the future i just will use my deposit as the last month's rent and if the landlord wants to complain, eh whatever. i've been given a lawyer's advice to do this.

I totally misread the title as "rape dentist."

my first apartment changed owners midway through the lease. we paid the original owner first, last, and security, but she quoted the new owner only first and security. even after showing him cancelled checks, he never sent us the deposit and told us he'd have to take it up with her.

my father, a lawyer, told us that even if the first owner did not give the new owner what was owed to him in deposit monies, he still owed us, and if he wanted to get that money back, would have to settle it in small claims with the first owner. after 3 months and no money, we sent him a letter informing him that we would take legal action if we did not receive the money by a certain date (about 2 weeks i think) and suddenly the money appeared, no problem!

haha yeah i mentioned this to my landlord and a month later his secretary produces some half-assed document that notes a $200 deduction for "trashout." even though there probably wasn't a total of five ounces of dust left in that apt when i left it. bastards.

My sis copied me this from NY rental laws:

What are the time limits for returning security deposits?

The landlord must return the security deposit, less any lawful
deduction, to the tenant at the end of the lease or within a
reasonable time thereafter. A landlord may use the security deposit:
(a) as reimbursement for the reasonable cost of repairs beyond normal
wear and tear, if the tenant damages the apartment; or (b) as
reimbursement for any unpaid rent.

Usually, a 'reasonable' amount of time is in the neighborhood of 30-60
days; however, the definition of 'reasonable' is not up to you or us
to decide.

Ultimately, the return of your deposit would be decided by the
Attorney General's Office or a Small Claims Court judge. If you feel
you have exhausted attempts to get your deposit returned through your
former landlord, you may wish to contact the New York State Attorney
General's Office at (212) 416-8000.

I checked my lease and it said I was due my deposit upon returning keys--which I sent around May 15 with a letter detailing what was owed me.

I really would take this to small claims court, not only bc it is a large enuf sum of money to bother (to me anyway!) but bc this guy has been such a stickler and taken me for everything I had and never budged an inch, like when I attempted to fight rent increases, and asked for month to month leasing and etc. And then he told me that it would be no problem if I wanted to leave early just to let him know and if he could find someone it would be ok, but then I told him I wanted out in Feb and he never bothered to look for anyone, and told me I should look.

Anyway, it's not really a dire situation financially, it's more so the principal of thing, which is really, really pissing me off. Combined with the fact that it would be really nice to have the money back.

Fuck a slumlord. Plus a certain "snark-free" magazine owes me $250. Which I've also been waiting for for the last 3 months. People are so horrible.

we've been in this house just over a year. when we re-signed the contract (for another year) some of the people stayed and some moved. rather than the landlords pay the people who were moving out their deposit back and get new money from the incoming people, they got the people moving in to pay the people who were moving out.

some of the people who moved out when we moved in moved to another house owned by the same landlords. now they've all moved out and one of them came round last week asking if we'd seen/spoken to the landlords, and next time we did could we please ask them to get in touch with him as they'd not returned his deposit. he says he's been writing to them, calling them and emailing them for the last month but heard nothing back.

when we asked the landlords about deposit, they maintained for ages that they'd never withheld anyone's deposit, then a few months ago one of them said actually they did keep £200 from a group a couple of years ago because they broke the handle locking mechanism thingy on a window in our house and that was how much it cost. the locking mechanism thingy is still broken.

we've each paid 6 weeks deposit. we are not going to trash the place. (i find it very unlikely that the guy who came round would've trashed the other place either.) when it gets to 6 weeks before the end of the contract, should we just stop paying? they have broken the contract already as the heating's fucked so they're not fulfilling their side of it.

Don't ever do this is my advice. I did this once (paying previous tenant) because I needed a place desperately and got screwed out of $600 and had a lot of stress over it. Who did you pay your deposit to? The landlord? Do you have a cancelled check and proof that you paid it? If you paid a previous tenant instead of the landlord, yeah, I would totally stop paying 6 weeks before the end of the contract, because otherwise you're never going to see that money again.

I would also check the housing laws and procedures for recovering a deposit, just so you know before you get ready to move again. For that matter there may be something there that lets you withhold paying rent if something essential like heating isn't working, there may be a law about min. temperature that a place has to maintain in the winter. I don't know about how it works in the UK of course, this is experience in the US I'm going on.

This is what I've done pretty much every time I've moved out of somewhere - and what I plan to do in the current flat. If I've caused any damage, I fix it or offer to pay for it when and only when I get a bill for it, so they can't pull the "but what about damage?" routine.

I've never *not* had problems getting a deposit back. Even that place in Swiss Cottage, where they kicked me out on a day's notice to bring the builders in, they tried to keep back money for "cleaning". I turned up, with then-boyfriend, casually mentionning that he was a solicitor specialising in PROPERTY LAW (god, he had some uses I guess) and got my deposit back sharpish.

oh great! i'm gonna be counting on getting mine back straight away. it's due in two weeks.

The problem with not paying the last months rent is that you often need a reference from the landlord for your new place.

The solution to this problem is to make up a reference. I've had to withhold last month's rent before and we just got a friend to write us a reference, accepted with no questions by the new estate agents.