(WARNING: THIS IS LONG and probably considered complaining- Bryan is likely to yell at me.)
As some of you have heard, we have been having issues with our old landlord. Specifically, he took $550 out of our deposit for "damages" we did to his house. (?!?!?) Right. We were pretty upset about this (because that would pay for the gas on our trip!!!) and decided to fight it. Thanks to some friends who are landlords, we got some good advice (and one friend even wrote out a whole sample letter for us! Thanks, Renee!!!!) and the issue appears to finally be resolved. We tried to reason with him at our "walk-through" (which was actually a "stand in the driveway" because he was in too much of a hurry to show us these "damages") and he promised to be "reasonable." Hmmm. Guess we differ on the definition of "reasonable," eh? His story to us was that he had "a guy moving in, in two weeks, and couldn't rent the place in the "trashed" condition that it was in" (!!!!!) If you hadn't guessed, this was his house that he had moved into brand-new and we were his first renters. Hence the complete misunderstanding of normal wear and tear. (As in your house will not look like it is brand-new after people rent it if it didn't look brand-new BEFORE they rented it!)
So he told us he had "a guy" (?awful big house for A GUY!) moving in and had to get it fixed up, right? Well, if you are going to lie to us, you should probably lie to everyone. The walls have ears you know.
Back up, so we sent him a letter disputing the charges, but offering to pay $225 of it to keep it out of court (making sure to include that we maintained our innocence of said charges.) And he calls and leaves a message for Bryan about talking about this "man-to-man." Did I mention that he refuses to deal with me at all? When I talk, he usually wouldn't even glance at me, and then would respond to Bryan. AS IF I WASN'T THERE. Last I checked, my name was on the lease, and it was 2009 in America, where it was acceptable for a man and woman who weren't married to have a conversation. But maybe I missed something somewhere. Maybe that was "in the lease", too. Like the supposed requirement that we reinstall appliances that he uninstalled or pay $75. This line must have read, "Landlord will only communicate with male tenants, females are brainless and of a lower class." I think maybe there were two versions of this lease.
So we decided to ignore his phone call, as he is legally bound to respond in writing to our letter. And then, my neighbor calls. As I said, "the walls have ears!" Actually, she called in the morning before he called. (Another reason we had decided not to return his call.) And she tells me that he called- her husband, mind you, as she is a woman and therefore not worth his breath- and told them that he needed the spare key they had for emergencies THAT DAY. Now up until this point, no one has been seen at the house (not even him), and the people who live across the street are very observant of all neighborhood traffic. (They let us know that his wife used to drive by regularly to check on things- and was probably why he called and told us that "a neighbor" had called and complained that we hadn't edged by the fence in the back when we had only lived there 2 1/2 weeks. Except that we spoke with all neighbors who can see our backyard, and none of them called him. We knew at that point we had seriously made the wrong decision to rent his house.)
So we are relatively certain that no maintenance has been done. And so then, she calls back that evening and tells us that he told her husband that he sold the house to a company that provides housing to those who can't afford it. BECAUSE HE COULDN'T FIND ANYONE TO RENT IT! Or buy it.
Hmm. Now last I checked, we received a letter telling us our lease was terminated, and we had to be out. We were not planning on moving. He told us to get out. We paid the rent early every month. He did not offer to allow us to continue renting or to buy the house as he had mentioned when we moved in. Interesting. And what about this "guy" he had moving in, in two weeks? Hmm, again.
Now this was all on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, he got the key back from the neighbors and met someone at the house. Again, still no one has seen "his drywall guy" there or any other "repair" people.
Interesting. And his message had said, "unless you WANT this to go to court." Did he miss where the landlord has to pay the court fees, and the security deposit is the tenant's until they AGREE to give him the money or a judge ORDERS that they pay him a certain amount. Oh, and that the law in Michigan (and most states) is extremely vague and slanted in favor of tenants, and HE has to PROVE that we did this "excessive" damage? Or maybe that's why he called back Friday afternoon. Because he realized these things and that if he is found to have wrongly charged us for anything, he has to pay us double the security deposit? To a tune of $4650? Hmmm. If I was the landlord, I'd be making absolutely sure I could win before taking my tenants to court!
His message Friday said that he "spoke with his wife, and we have decided to just give you what you want." Hmmm. Or you looked more closely at the law and/or spoke with people who have been landlords before and realized that if we go to court, you will not only get no money from us, but you will also likely have to give us $2325 out of your pocket? Yeah, that sounds more likely.
In light of all the new information we have gotten, we wish we would have refused to pay anything. As we were obviously scammed. But no worries, we have learned a valuable lesson for $225, and we are grateful that this issue was resolved. We have really been praying about it, wondering if we really do morally owe him for all these "damages." The ones he refused to show us, if you remember.
Other interesting facts were
~he said he had photographic evidence of the condition of the house when we moved in, but never provided us with any evidence of move-in condition or move-out condition when charging us. (I would think if he really could prove we did so much damage to his house, he would do so before taking us to court, to avoid the fees.)
~the address that he gave us for correspondence was not the address on his check
~the person who signed for the letter we sent to him was not him, his wife, or anyone with the same last name
~he is paying us the additional $325 in installments (because he doesn't have it, presumably), even though MI law states that the security deposit must be kept in a separate account, and he therefore SHOULD have this money right now.
~unless I misheard, he will pay us the second half of the money at the end of July, which would violate the law that only gives him 45 days from move out to return it, and therefore we can sue him for double the deposit (meaning he would have to pay us the rest of the money PLUS $2325.)
Guess you'd better research the law better next time, sir. Or else make sure your tenants are illiterate, stupid, or preferably both.
As I said, we are so thankful to God that this is resolved (or so we hope), as it has been a HUGE stress on us for the last 3 weeks.
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