Greedy Landlord Doesn’t Want To Pay Back Security Deposit, So They Take Him To Court And Made Him Pay Even More

There is no shortage of bad landlord stories on Reddit (or anywhere on the internet, really), a surprising number of which have to do with these folks refusing to fully refund security deposits.

Luckily, there are some people out there who have the time and money to fight them on it.

OP and her husband were young and poor and jumped through all of the proper hoops while renting.

So this story takes place like five years ago, when my husband and I were broke college students with a young baby.

We worked hard to afford our little duplex ($600/month) and necessities, while trying to finish our degrees to one day get ahead. Our duplex was one in an entire neighborhood owned by a large company and managed by a super sketchy married couple who lived on the same street.

Before our kid was born we did the normal excited-new-parent thing of painting his nursery and decorating, blah blah.

Our lease stated we needed permission to paint, which we obtained from the property manager (the husband of the couple).

He insisted it would be fine and, being young and naïve, we didn’t get it in writing because he was so chill about it.

So we paint and move on with our lives.

They continued to be model renters through the move-out process.

A little while later our lease was up and we had given notice to vacate as we were moving closer to my husband’s school.

The property manager was understanding, everything was fine, and we scheduled our move-out inspection. Prior to this inspection, we specifically asked him for the name of the paint color we needed to use when re-painting the nursery.

He flat-out refused to give it, saying it was unnecessary to paint as we’d been there so long they’d be painting the whole duplex anyway. Okay, cool.

Move-out inspection day comes and goes. We left the house in better shape than we found it, aside from a small area of torn carpet right along a seam in a doorway.

The property manager inspected and said everything looked “great” and we should get our whole deposit ($400) back minus “a few bucks” for the torn carpet. Sounds good, boss.

Then, of course, the landlord refused to return their entire deposit.

Enter a period of weeks where we waited and waited for our deposit, eventually leaving messages upon messages with false promises or no return calls at all.

Eventually, over a month later, this culminated in a phone call with the property manager where he said, and I remember this almost verbatim, “I don’t know what you’re so worried about anyway! It’s only like $200 you’re getting back!”

He cited the painted nursery and “the huge mess left behind” as deductions, and I coldly informed him we’d be going to court then because we didn’t feel we owed for those reasons (the place was spotless when we left aside from the 6-pack of beer we left him in the fridge for being chill).

When they went to pick up the check they recorded the conversation.

Not one hour later, he called back and miraculously our refund check had “just shown up in the mail!”

Already knowing he was trying to mess us, we installed a recording app on my phone (one-party consent state) and went to the office. The check indeed was only for $200 of our deposit, and included no list of what they charged us for (important detail).

We intentionally goaded him into admitting that he had told us not to paint and that the house looked great on move-out, and went on our happy way, revenge plan already unfolding.

We didn’t cash the check and instead emailed the CEO of the entire property company, copying in the property manager, and detailing the entire process.

The CEO sent back a smartass email with a cute little typed-up list of deductions, including all the things we were specifically told we wouldn’t be on the hook for.

A fun detail was that even by his own math they owed us $230 of our deposit. No one really had an answer for why they then tried to issue a check for $200… but whatever.

Then they filed in small claims court.

Joke was on him, because we began digging through all the state regulations on security deposits and refunds, hoping to prove that our length of stay meant he couldn’t charge us for “wear-and-tear” things like carpet cleaning, etc.

And in our search, we instead happened upon a statute requiring landlords to return security deposit refunds and an itemized list of deductions within 30 days… or lose the right to withhold for actual damages and be subject to treble damages if the landlord is thought to be maliciously withholding the refund.

So we typed up a demand letter for our entire security deposit, citing the statute (which he had broken because we didn’t receive any refund offer or itemized list until six weekends later).

And when he sent a smart— reply, we filed in small claims court for our entire deposit plus treble damages and court costs.

Now, I don’t know if it’s clear at this point, but I can be really f—— petty if I feel like someone is trying to mess with me.

And it was clear this guy made a career out of stealing money from low-income renters who likely could never afford to fight it.

I was mad.

OP was intent on being the most prepared person in the room.

I spent the next month before our court date compiling all email correspondence (in which he’d screwed himself over numerous times by providing written documentation that he exceeded time limits, charged incorrect amounts, etc.).

I also compiled phone records showing dozens upon dozens of unanswered and unreturned calls to the property manager and detailed accounts I’d made immediately after hanging up of lies from the property manager.

I printed out a screenshot from the company’s own website detailing the CEO’s role as the “Legal Advisor” (so I could innocently claim, “shouldn’t he have known the statutes for these issues?”).

I printed all the relevant statutes and highlighted the important parts. And then I made three copies of everything and nicely compiled each in a binder complete with sleeve protectors and page numbers – one for our own reference, one for the property manager and/or CEO (we weren’t sure who would show up), and one for the judge himself.

We also took our handy little recording of the property manager admitting to all the things he lied about and then pretended to have never said.

And she was rewarded for achieving that!

Needless to say the judge laughed at how prepared we were, asked if we were law students, and then awarded us treble damages and court fees as well as interest.

I will never forget the CEO’s face when we looked over and smiled at him. All his emails and disregard for the law were on the table and, rather than giving us the original $350 or so we were promised from our deposit, he ended up paying us over $1300 a month later.

It was glorious.

I bet Reddit is applauding, too.

More and more of these landlords need to get what they deserve.

Remember to document, document, document.

It’s funny how they all the sudden find the money!

This lawyer has some advice in case there’s a next time.

And yes, they are applauding.

Everyone loves when bad landlords get their due, right?

I know I do!

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.