Roommate attempting to steal security deposit - advice?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have mentioned in a previous thread that my ex-roommate, who moved out in spring of this year, was a little bit crazy. Last time I posted a thread about her, she was attempting to rent my apartment out by the night. Since then, the relationship has deteriorated significantly. She has threatened to call the cops and/or apartment management on me numerous times (completely unsuccessfully, as I have done nothing wrong.)

Most recently, I finally got out of that apartment and moved into a place with a good friend. I moved out in late July. With mandatory cleaning fees taken out, the returned security deposit for that apartment should have come to about $800. We originally both paid $500, for a total of 1 months rent.

When I moved out, I placed the keys in an address with my forwarding address, and returned it to the office. According to all information I was given, this is the correct way to receive your deposit back.

However, my roommate called the management office (she now lives in a different state) and told them to send the entire deposit to her. Amazingly, they did this. However, due to general incompetence, they sent it to our old address (at the apartment we used to share.) She didn’t leave a forwarding address, and so the check for the entire amount, made out to her, is apparently in limbo right now, and may continue to be so for up to a month. That is, at least, what I was told.

I called the office about this issue and spoke to a number of people about it. I was treated quite rudely, but I think the company knows they made a mistake–when I called one woman in management, she promised to call me back once she’d looked at the file, but never did. Instead, I received an email, sent to both of us, saying that there was “some confusion” about the deposit, and to where should they send it?

I reiterated my suggestion that they divide it and send half to each of us. My roommate responded telling them to send the entire check to her and that I’d never paid half. I haven’t heard anything since then, and I’m afraid that they might believe her. I made the mistake of giving my deposit directly to her in the form of a check, and she paid the entirety of the deposit with her debit card. I believe my bank should still have evidence of the checks I’ve given her, and I think I wrote “deposit” on the check, but I need to double-check that. However, this is the only proof I have.

I’m wondering what people would do in my shoes. As I said, the sum is only about $400. However, as a poor grad student, that’s about 1/3 of my monthly income.

Should I continue to pressure the company to return my money directly to me? Or will I just have to try to get it back from my roommate? I’ve seriously considered taking it to a small claims court, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it in terms of a time/money investment. To complicate matters, she lives in a different state now, as I’ve said, and I think that would make it more difficult.

Has anyone ever been in this situation before? What did you do?

2

IANAL - but:

  1. if it goes to small claims court - I’d think a ‘reasonable person’ standard would hold that if both of your names were on the lease, that the assumption would be the deposit was from both, even if paid with a single check/transaction.

  2. Mandatory cleaning fees? Unless you left the place an absolute mess, I’d wonder about the legality of those (and this is where you’d need not just a lawyer, but one familar with the laws in your specific jurisdiction).

3

Tell the rental company that that is not true, and that if they will not send the security deposit to both of you, they need to hold it for now.

Find out if you do have evidence to support your claim. If you do, show it to the rental company.

Look up the laws in your state.

4

I’ve seen that before, I wouldn’t get too worked up about it.

As far as the roommate thing, I’m not sure how old you are, but if you’re in the 18-24 range, my advice would be to just drop it and call the whole thing a life lesson. My roommates did the exact same thing to me once. I called about my deposit check, found out they one of them called the day before and had it switched to his address (several states away), I got lucky in that I asked them to put my address back on it and they did.

Your only hope at the moment, IMO, is that you’ve got the office so friggen confused that they just cut the thing in half and sends it to both of you in hopes of staying out of it.

In fact, I’m almost surprised that isn’t written into law somewhere. That any money that the landlord gives the tenant is split up evenly between everyone who lives there. If they chose to split it up differently, it’s their problem, they can take themselves to court over it and keep the landlord out of it.
I wonder if that’s legal? I wonder if, moreso, it would be legal, as a landlord to request a single check for any money received (or cash) and disbursements for any reason are split evenly. That way the landlord never has any idea who paid what portion of the security deposit, the rent payments, for the damaged carpet etc and they can always show that they gave each tenant an equal amount of any money returned.

5

I’d be surprised if any rental company would voluntarily hold a deposit check for fear of being taken to court…and not wanting to get into the middle of a roommate spat.

6

From a purely practical point of view - you’ll have a much easier time getting your half of the security deposit from the management company than from crazy ex-roommate. So I’d continue to work on that aspect of if as much as possible, right up until they tell you they sent a check for the full amount to crazy ex-roommate.

BTW, was this the “neighbor needs a key so he can show craigslist people the furniture I’m selling” ex-roommate, or am I thinking of another poster?

7

What? Why would anybody drop the matter and $500 for the sake of a “life lesson”?

8

I’d call the management company and offer to come pick up the check personally. If they are okay with that, make a copy of their check, write your own check to the crazy roommate for her half of the amount, and then send it all to the whacko by registered mail.

9

My fault, I thought $500 was the entire amount getting returned and taking someone to small claims over $250 just isn’t worth the time or stress and hardly worth the money.
But even if the OP continues to fight this out, I’ll still hold that (if she’s under 25 or so) she needs to consider this a life lesson. A lot of roommates turn our to be crappy pieces of crap when the lease starts nearing the end (often times the same goes for landlords). I had to take one of my roommates to court once as well and even with as much as I learned from that, even learning to put everyone’s name on everything, I still wouldn’t have been protected from a roommate that, literally, moved out one day without telling anyone. Luckily the judge saw things my way.

10

Mandatory cleaning fees are okay in a lot of places (note I said a lot, not all, you have to do your own research), typically where they are allowed it basically comes down to the apartments are rented after having them professionally cleaned (esp. the carpeting.) So the lease will typically say that the tenants can pay to have the carpet professionally cleaned and receive the full deposit back, or they can accept a deduction of an amount that is equivalent to what it would reasonably cost to have the carpets professionally cleaned.

Typically you can require it be a professional cleaning service that does the job, meaning the tenant, if they choose to go the route of using their own cleaning service, will be required to present a receipt from a professional service to receive the full deposit back.

Again, that’s just “a lot of places.”

Where some people get confused is generally “normal wear and tear” is not something you can hit the tenants up for, but in many places if part of the “move in state” of the apartment was that it had been professionally cleaned it isn’t seen as unreasonable that the tenants make sure that same state is how it is left.

Things like old carpeting finally wearing out and etc, that is totally on the land lord in most places, the tenant that happens to be the unlucky one to get the last usable lease-period out of carpeting isn’t going to be hit up for the ordinary wear-and-tear on that carpet of the last 2-3 tenants.

11

I asked a friend that works for a property management company about this. She said that the security deposit goes back to both people on the lease regardless of who paid what- one check in both names unless ahead of time they write a letter saying to do something differently. That letter has to be signed by both tenants. Might depend on the state.

12

How would they be any better returning it to just one party when it’s clearly in dispute?

13

Unfortunately, from the management company’s point of view, this means that they have a record of the full amount having come from her. Their attitude (and perhaps even their obligation) may well be just to return the money to the person it came from. They’re not in a position to know what arrangements might have been agreed upon between roommates.

ETA: I see on preview that someone has indicated that I’m not correct about this, whihc sounds encouraging for the OP.

14

Typically if you withhold the deposit for more then a certain amount of time (30 days?) the tennants can sue for 3 times what the deposit was. In this case, the deposit was $800 if the landlord holds it for more then 30 days, they could sue for $2400. The landlord likely won’t voluntarily hold on to it because the roommates are having personal problems. They’re going to do something to get rid of it. Either split it up and give them each half or flip a coin and send it to one or the other (or a third option, get involved in the spat, pick a side and sent it the person they think it belongs to).

If you re-read the OP, this dispute doesn’t involve the landlord at all, it’s (so far as I can tell) completely between the roommates. There’s no reason for the landlord to get mixed up in that.

15

If I were you, I’d let your roommate take the whole deposit then sue her for your half, assuming you can get a copy of the cheque you wrote from your bank (and assuming it does indeed say “Deposit” on it). I would also TELL her that you plan to sue her for half of it, if you have the proof - maybe then she’ll do the right thing.

16

Roommate is in another state, IIRC. This would make it impractical for that amount. Gas, hotel, food…

First I would check the lease agreement. I would think that the rent wasn’t paid, the apartment would come after both of you, so the deposit should be divided equally.

hh

17

OP may be SOL, but what I would do first is find out about that check pronto. Get a copy of the carbon or the check register from the bank (they may charge you for this - this is why I keep carbon checks for myself).

If you haven’t written deposit on the check, you’re fairly screwed.

However, if you did specify that it was for deposit? Email or write a letter to the management people (do not call). Include an attachment of the check image. Let them know that you expect one-half the check amount to be sent to you directly as your portion of the remaining deposit. Get their answer in writing as to whether they agree or not.

If you can bully them with the evidence into giving you your money directly, you’re golden, and you can just shrug and ignore crazy roommate.

If you can’t, I would look into small-claims court about getting my half back from roomie. From what I recall (IANAL) it doesn’t matter if she’s out of state now, it’s where the apartment renting was happening that determines where the case gets seen. If she can’t get there to defend herself, she’ll have worse chances of winning the case. I also believe that the losing party covers the court costs in addition, but that may vary by location.

18

Not impractical at all. Assuming the OP is still living in the same area as the apartment, they should be able to file suit in their state/county. Unless there’s something weird about local laws, you can generally file suit in the jurisdiction in which the original financial transaction took place.

It would be very inconvenient for the roommate/defendant, but that’s just too bad. Might prompt the ex-roommate to arrive at a settlement if the alternatives are the expense of appearing in court, or the very real risk of a default judgment against them.

19

The amount of craziness and hassle to get it back may well exceed the value of $500 bucks.

I suspect this might be the case here.

20

Lasciel’s advice is good. Do everything in your power to convince the landlord that you should get your fair share. Way better to get the money from the start than have to sue for it. Even if you win, you might well have trouble collecting from a deadbeat asshole like your roommate turned out to be.