Renter skips out

[Planestew]

A tenant agreed to rent our property. She gave us a deposit and pro-rated rent for 2 weeks in june. She turned on all of her utilities and telephone. After taking possession for 2 weeks and not signing her lease, she decided not to rent the property. She put a stop payment on her rent check and deposit. She will not return the keys as her mail is being forwarded. What reclaim do we have from her? We have no signed lease and we are out 2 weeks rent along with the stop payment fee.
Donna

 

[HomeGuru]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Planestew:
A tenant agreed to rent our property. She gave us a deposit and pro-rated rent for 2 weeks in june. She turned on all of her utilities and telephone. After taking possession for 2 weeks and not signing her lease, she decided not to rent the property. She put a stop payment on her rent check and deposit. She will not return the keys as her mail is being forwarded. What reclaim do we have from her? We have no signed lease and we are out 2 weeks rent along with the stop payment fee.
Donna<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Go after her for the 2 weeks rent based on the stop payment check,the fee and the cost of rekeying the locks and 2 sets of keys. You will not be able to collect anything else due to no written lease agreement.

 

[Tracey]

You may be able to collect rent until you re-rent the place, if your state has a law covering the effect of a delivered but unsigned lease. If not, you had a month-to-month lease, & T had to give proper notice & is still on the hook for July rent. Your damages include the stopped check fees, costs of new locks, costs of informing the utility companies that she left & they might want to shut off the power/water, attorney fees, & costs.

You can find out her new address by mailing her an empty envelope with "Do Not Forward, Address Correction Requested" written in red on the envelope. The PO will slap the forwarding address sticker on & send the envelope back to you. Then you know where to send the process servers.

Sue her in small claims court, then garnish her wages/put a lien on her car to force her to pay. She's about to pay some tuition to the university of life!

If you post your state, we'll look up the laws for you....

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This is not legal advice and you are not my client. Double check everything with your own attorney and your state's laws.

 

[Planestew]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Tracey:
You may be able to collect rent until you re-rent the place, if your state has a law covering the effect of a delivered but unsigned lease. If not, you had a month-to-month lease, & T had to give proper notice & is still on the hook for July rent. Your damages include the stopped check fees, costs of new locks, costs of informing the utility companies that she left & they might want to shut off the power/water, attorney fees, & costs.

You can find out her new address by mailing her an empty envelope with "Do Not Forward, Address Correction Requested" written in red on the envelope. The PO will slap the forwarding address sticker on & send the envelope back to you. Then you know where to send the process servers.

Sue her in small claims court, then garnish her wages/put a lien on her car to force her to pay. She's about to pay some tuition to the university of life!

If you post your state, we'll look up the laws for you....

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Thanks for the great advice Tracey. Our state is Florida.

 

[Tracey]

You can sue T for the difference between the rent you actually collected & the rent T was supposed to pay. [83.595] I couldn't find a statute covering the effect of an unsigned but delivered lease. You can definitely sue T based on an oral month-to-month lease. T is required to give you written notice that she was terminating the rental at least 15 days prior to the next rent payment being due. [83.57] You could also argue that the oral agreement was for a year lease, using the written but unsigned lease as evidence of the verbal agreement. [83.46] If you win, you can avoid having to rerent the apt & just hold T liable for the rent as it comes due. [83.595]

Since she just left in the middle of the night, she's liable for July rent and the costs of securing a new tenant. If the lease specified a NSF fee, you can add that to your complaint.

Go forth & sue.

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This is not legal advice and you are not my client. Double check everything with your own attorney and your state's laws.