Question QUESTION: Good morning,
I signed a lease after making a verbal agreement of my intentions that I could only anticipate staying 4 or so months. As I was in a hotel for a week I did not have the time for reading the terms of the lease. On June 30th, I found out at 445pm I was permanently laid off. I immediately gave a letter of my 30 day notice, no job no rent. I thought it would be better to give notice than be evicted! My landlord said he would try to work with me, as I was already barely getting by – free rent would have been the only option. He told me that the lease renewed auomatically. I never went in and signed a new lease though. So we dicussed the situation and I had no other options as paying any rent without a job was not an option. I went to St. Louis to live with family, I then got this Notice on Claim on Security Deposit. I have been unsuccessful in my job search for 2 months. I need your help please. I have 15 days to respond to his letter. My rent and his claims are also not consistant.
Thank you for your time.
Regards
Scott Marcellan
ANSWER: Scott,
If you want all the details on whether a notice to claim your security deposit is accurate you can look-up Chapter 83 of the Florida Statutes. This will give you the proper dates a notice to claim your deposit must adhere.
Bottom line...if you broke your lease and all they are doing is keeping your deposit then you might want to consider that a "draw." It sucks to lose your deposit but remember they could claim even more...lost rent, damages to the unit, cost to re-rent the unit, etc.
You could appeal the notice but can you afford the time, energy and money to do that.
I know this is not the answer you are looking for but just let it go. The only way you would have a good appeal against the claim is if you left the unit in perfect condition and the landlord had another tenant the day you move out thus no expenses for preparing the unit for the next tenant and lost rent.
Regards,
Steve Schiffer
www.OrlHomes.com
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thank you I will try to locate the statute. My concern is not the security deposit, I understand losing that if I was in a lease. I guess the question needs to be rephrased as "Is there such a thing as a lease that renews automatically?" Even if there is, doe the tenant not have to come in to sign it stating that he/she agrees to the terms of the lease?" Also, the landlord is claiming that I owe him 6 months rent, his claim on the security deposit is 6 months rent minus the security deposit. He is saying I owe him for the 5 months remaining. I did respond within the 15 days to his claim stating my issues.
Your help/knowledge is appreciated.
Best Regards,
Scott
Answer Scott,
Leases that are not renewed can have clauses that state the lease defaults to a month-to-month. If there is no such language a judge will most likely say "if you lived in the property" you owe rent and enforce the month-to-month concept. BUT, I am not a lawyer so please confirm with a lawyer.
As for the 6 months rent...if you lived in the property and did not pay rent then, I guess, the claim is legit. If you did not live there the claim seems frivolous. Now, if you broke your lease with 6 months left on the lease then that is what the landlord might be trying to claim and they have a right to claim it. If that is the case then tell the landlord "good luck" with his claim.
Also, do you know if the unit was re-rented? It is against the law to collect double rent. So, at the very least if the unit was vacant for 1-2 months and then was re-rented the landlord could only claim for vacant months against you.
