Community Chat

[CardinalGirl]

On 8/6/2014 raven-blackbird said:

On 8/1/2014 CardinalGirl_ said:

Some background: When we rent a house/apartment, we always get a Security Deposit. This amount is put into an escrow account. When the tenant moves out, the deposit covers any damage done to the apartment....and cleaning, if needed. Every single deduction is documented. After the deductions, the rest goes back to the tenant. If the tenant owes any back rent, we have always allowed them to use the security deposit towards that rent.....as long as there was any left after damages.

I have been to court many times over the years when we've had to evict a tenant due to unpaid rent. Every single judge has given us a judgement that equals what the tenant owes...plus court costs. They usually hear the case, then tell you they will review the evidence and then enter a judgement. We receive the final judgement in the mail a few days later. After the judgement is entered, the tenant then has ten days to vacate the property.

This week, I had a court appearance with a young couple who owes $2300.00 in rent. I fully expected the judgement to be for that amount, plus court costs. The judgement arrived in today's mail. The judge said that the judgement was indeed in our favor for the $2300.00.......but he said we had to credit their $830.00 security deposit towards the rent they owe, which reduces the judgement to $1470.00. He did also award us court costs.

Now we have disgruntled tenants living in the house for ten more days.....and ZERO security deposit to cover damages. We'll have to file additional court papers for small claims court if there are any repairs or cleaning to do.

Frustrating. Just plain frustrating.

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the judge did the right thing...........a security deposit is just that......security on the rent in case they don't pay or still owe rent money..........a cleaning/damages deposit is just that also.

I managed my grandmother's rentals until her death, a new tenant was charged the first months rent, a security deposit and cleaning deposit.......if they owned a pet then they paid a pet deposit............when they moved out if the rent was to date, they got their security deposit back.......if the property was as they received it.......they got their cleaning/damage deposit back........if their dog didn't dig up the yard or destroy the carpet, they got that deposit back also.......place wasn't clean, we had it cleaned and their cleaning deposit went toward that...............................................raven

Sorry, no. The security deposit is specifically not allowed to be used for rent, unless we agree to it. Our rental agreement was written by a Real Estate Attorney for our state, and follows State Law. It has been upheld before many judges. This particular judge is known to do some strange things in his court. He routinely baffles the attorneys appearing before him. Like I said, though....he lost the primary and is on his way out.

We are licensed Real Estate Brokers and are under the scrutiny of the State Board of Realtors. I can assure you that we know how to handle security deposits, and we know how they can be used and how they cannot be used.

We have had two random audits since we have been in business, and believe me--they comb through everything with a fine-toothed comb and account for every single penny. We sailed through with absolutely no problems.

Actually, there was one problem discovered during one of the audits: we were seventeen cents off on on one of our escrow accounts that has over half-a-million dollars in it. The auditor had us make a seventeen cent deposit to make it right.

Actually, in our state, unless you were a licensed Real Estate Broker, you would not have been allowed to manage your grandmother's property.