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About Creditwrench
Expertise
Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.
Experience
I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.
Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.
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You are here: Experts > Business > Corporate Law > Collections Law > apartment lease
Expert: Creditwrench - 10/28/2009
Question
In August of 2004 my niece, her husband and my sister moved to SC from Va. My husband and I went to the apartment complex they were moving into to help with unloading furniture. The apartment complex advertised a move in special waiving the security deposit, but told them they would have to pay the deposit of $629, we weren't told why at that moment , but the mgr.put us on the spot and told my husband and I that we could sign for them. Mu husband signed, but my niece and her husband signed nothing. We were lead to believe that we were merely cosigning and when we questioned the fact the apt. mgr. said "no" we were the leasees and they were the tenants and the reason they would of had to pay the security deposit was because their credit was very bad. It was late in the day and the office was closing. My husband and I were very upset, so the following morning my husband went to the complex where he met with my niece's husband and the apartment mgr. husband wittnessed the signing of a new lease by my niece's husband, my husband paid their security deposit of $629. My husband then asked the apt. mgr. if the original lease would be destroyed and if his name was now off of everything, she told him yes and that he was no longer liable. In Sept. 09 we were totally surprised when we received a letter from a debt collector stating that we owed $1050, this is 4 years later, I called and disputed this claim, but have since then received a second letter demanding payment. We went to the complex and attempted to resolve the situation. They have told us that they will look for the lease agreement and once found will contact the debt collector to inform them of the error, to date they are telling us that they haven't had time to look for it. To sum it up our credit was excellent, so the security deposit was waived because it was based on the initial lease that my husband signed. The following day when the new lease was signed by my niece's husband who had terrible credit we paid the security deposit to get it in his name and out of my husbands. We are very upset, we have always had the highest credit rating because of our excellent credit and now our credit rating is being affected because of someone else's mistake. When my niece and her husband moved we knew they moved out before their lease agreement expired, but we were relieved knowing that we had paid their deposit to get our name off of the lease. This has been 4 years ago and of course we don't have copies of anything to validate this occurrence other than a credit card statement that shows that we received a cash advance of the exact amount of the security deposit on the day that the new lease was signed by my niece's husband. If the apartment complex had good record keeping they would know that if we had remained on the lease the deposit would not of had to be paid because of our excellent credit rating. We were turned over to a debt collector who turned us into the credit bureau, now 25years of excellent credit has been damaged by someone's poor record keeping or perhaps dishonesty. We were told that they mailed us a notice at our last known address which they say was the apartment that my niece lived in, we never lived there and were never even listed as tenants of the apartment, we have lived at the same address for 15 years. Please help, we feel like our good credit rating has been tarnished without our knowledge of any of this or the opportunity to dispute it. We have not talked with my niece or her husband about this situation as of yet, we are hoping that the apartment complex will locate the valid lease and this can be resolved without a family dispute. Do we have any legal rights...please help.
Answer
Trying to unravel that mess after that length of time is going to be impossible or nearly so. In the meantime your credit is most likely going to keep on taking the hit for the full 7 years. If you aren't extremely careful you could end up getting a judgment against you and that would also further ruin your credit and extend the time the mess will be on your credit report for at least 7 years after the judgment is entered. If you pay it off it will be reported as a paid collection and that is even worse than not paying it at all. The way to get this mess put to bed is really simple. First of all you need to learn your rights under FDCPA and FCRA and then you can end up taking the debt collector to federal court and suing the pants off of them. Make them pay you to go away and leave them alone, take it off your credit reports and pay you damages on top of that. Yes, I can imagine the thoughts that immediately arise upon getting that kind of advice. Having to hire attorneys, going to court and all of that is always very scary to most folks but that's all unnecessary. In most cases a few letters is all it takes to make them go away but if they smell money and get stubborn trying to get it you might have to take it all the way. You don't have to worry about hiring a lawyer because you can easily learn how to do all of it yourself without needing any lawyers. More than 5,000 people have sued debt collectors this year alone and although some hired lawyers to do it for them lots of them did it all by themselves. I teach people how to do all of it and win without lawyers. You can too. If you don't then you can look forward to having really messed up credit for the next several years.
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