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I lived in Ohio for the past 4 or 5 years. I was renting from an
office located in West Virginia. Would landlord / tenant laws for OH
or WV apply to me regarding the return of a deposit?
I always paid rent on time every month, and had a good relationship
with the property manager (who lived in one of the housing units behind
my house). Upon informing them that we were going to be moving, she
came over and did a walk-through of the house. Then she told me that
the office told her that as long as we got the house emptied out that
we would get our deposit back. The deposit was only $400, but based on
this fact we paid $200 for a third party to come and basically haul off
truck-load after truck-load of unwanted furniture and other things.
When we were finished with the work, we contacted the property manager
who walked over and did another walk-through of the empty house. Also
they had decided to replace the carpet and flooring and re-paint and
then place her (the manager) into my old house since it was probably
the nicest home in the lot. This house was fairly large (full
basement) and besides all the furniture there were quite a few bags of
junk (clothes or just garbage). We were due to be out on Thursday
March 31st and the garbage runs the following day. At first the
property manager (when we informed her that we would have heaps of
garbage) said to just put it all outside and they would arrange for a
special pickup. Then when we told her that the garbage was out there
they decided (since it was just going to be an extra day) to wait until
the Friday.
Long story short - about a month goes by after we move (I had been
looking for the deposit to be returned on the first of the next month
but no refund). When I called their WV office, a lady there was
extremely rude and told me that she was not going to be issuing a
refund because she said that her people had to work for a week to get
boxes of stuff out of the house (I know is a lie because we paid and
worked really hard to empty the unit). Then she said that the garbage
company charged them an extra $50 because the pickup amount was "more
than healthy for household consumption". Like thats any of my problem,
but still probably weighed a little on their decision to withhold a
deposit. They also said that the condition of the house was a mess - I
don't see what they mean, because all items were out...and yes we
didn't vaccuum or shampoo because we were under the impression that
they were going to be doing all of that themselves.
The 4 or 5 years I rented from them I was always sure to have their
rent paid in full on time, every month...not a single late payment on
my record. The fact that they had their property manager do a
walk-thru and she did not indicate in any way that she thought there
would be a problem with the refund based on what she saw there that
last day says to me that I may be entitled to something. Now I have to
try to find a lawyer who may be willing to take our case.
Any comments are welcome - but back to the question in my subject -
what "kind" of a lawyer do I look for? I looked in the phone book but
saw NONE (and there were quite a few) who specialize in "landlord /
tenant laws" or at least none that are worded quite that way. Is there
some other legal term for the type of lawyer I would need to get? The
few I did call told me they didn't do anything like that, and that they
couldn't refer me to anyone else.
One other question - since I honestly believe I have a case and have
been wronged by them completely withholding my deposit, should I call
them again or send them a letter threatening legal action - or would
that be a bad idea? Should I just go through the process and let it be
a surprise to them when they receive a subpento or whatever to attend a
hearing about this. I was thinking if I threaten them, perhaps they
may just pay up... or if they decide to "ride it out" so to speak, if
I let them know I am considering legal action, would that give them
time to get some other excuse together that they could bring to court?
I don't think I have anything to worry about though, I considered
myself to be a very good tenant (and the property inspector even told
me that we were among their best tennants etc). Anyway thanks in
advance for the advice.
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