Lease

[cateb12]

My roommate and I live in CT and May 1st of this year we moved out of our old apartment. Now almost two months later I received a letter from a collections agency stating we owe money from our old apartment. Neither I nor my roommate received mail or email with any bill for damages caused during move out! They sent it now but I need them to get it back from collections....is that possible?

Second question comes because we misplaced our original lease from the first year. When it came time to renew we signed a new lease and the management of our building changed hands. When we moved out the building management told us we only payed first month rent when moving in. We were sure we payed first and one month security but did not have our lease and they would not provide it for us. Now I went back in my emails and found an email to the management saying do we pay first and $1500 security or first and another month for security but there is no response email from that email dated over two years ago.

They are now saying we owe $850 in damages which is ridiculous but if we did pay a second months rent is there a way that they would have to provide us with our original lease or are we screwed because we don't have it??? Please help they are trying to scam us and I know it!

 

[Gail in Georgia]

"They are now saying we owe $850 in damages which is ridiculous but if we did pay a second months rent is there a way that they would have to provide us with our original lease or are we screwed because we don't have it??? "

There is no legal requirement that they have to provide you with a copy of your original lease and even if they did, this would not help to determine if you actually paid a security deposit.

Did you pay rent with checks? If so, perhaps you could go back and see if you can find previous checks indicating you paid a security deposit.

However, you also need to understand that the $850 damages might be above that of the amount in the deposit.

Gail