L
Lorimay
Guest
My husband and I moved out of an apartment complex in Florida 6/30/00 to Virginia...on July 10th we received a letter from the manager of the complex for damages. It stated we had 15 days to reply to this letter with any objections to the claim. We did so by certified mail within the time period of 15 days. We never received any response back from them. A couple weeks ago...we both received seperate letters from a collection agency about this debt of $132. They sent my husband a letter to his parents in New York and sent my letter to my old address in Florida for some reason. We did of course leave a forwarding address with the apartment complex (that's how we received our original letter from them).
This letter from the collection agency did not have the information on it about the Fair Debt Collection Protection Act that I understand to be required by law. It also had no information who the creditor was. We figured that out ourselves. I wrote a letter today (that I plan on mailing tomorrow certified mail)that requests a cease of communication, my right by law. I don't want to deal with them because I feel they sent an illegal letter because it lacked the FDCPA information. Am I doing what's right by sending them this letter? I dispute the claims of damages the apartment complex is stating and am not sure how to deal with them. I originally in my letter to them was only objecting to the claim for $100 to countertops. These countertops are more than likely the originals(15yrs old)and were old looking when we moved in. On our original walk thru sheet, there was no area asking about condition of countertops like it had for almost everything else, so no mention was made if the condition was good, fair or poor.(the new walk thru sheets they have now by the way have that on them). They also charged us $30 for a bleach stain to the carpet(which I accidently did)and agreed originally to that. They said the $30 would cover them having it dyed when the carpets are cleaned. However, I found out a few weeks later from a former neighbor, at the request of the NEW tenents, a new carpet was installed. So, I feel I should not have to pay for that claim if they changed their minds to replace the carpet. By the way, we lived there for 4 years. The last claim is for damaged mini-blinds. I agree they needed replacing, however they charged me $40 each for standard blinds...nothing fancy. (Wal-Mart has them for $4.00) Do I have a right to request receipts that they paid $40 for these or is there any justified complaint I have to the excessive amount they are charging for these? I don't mind paying for what is fair...but they are known to try to give people a hard time when move out time comes around. We've always been good, rent paying tenents and never had problems like this in the past.
Thank you for any help you can provide. I just want to take the proper steps in dealing with this matter. I hope someone can help.
Thank you,
Lori
This letter from the collection agency did not have the information on it about the Fair Debt Collection Protection Act that I understand to be required by law. It also had no information who the creditor was. We figured that out ourselves. I wrote a letter today (that I plan on mailing tomorrow certified mail)that requests a cease of communication, my right by law. I don't want to deal with them because I feel they sent an illegal letter because it lacked the FDCPA information. Am I doing what's right by sending them this letter? I dispute the claims of damages the apartment complex is stating and am not sure how to deal with them. I originally in my letter to them was only objecting to the claim for $100 to countertops. These countertops are more than likely the originals(15yrs old)and were old looking when we moved in. On our original walk thru sheet, there was no area asking about condition of countertops like it had for almost everything else, so no mention was made if the condition was good, fair or poor.(the new walk thru sheets they have now by the way have that on them). They also charged us $30 for a bleach stain to the carpet(which I accidently did)and agreed originally to that. They said the $30 would cover them having it dyed when the carpets are cleaned. However, I found out a few weeks later from a former neighbor, at the request of the NEW tenents, a new carpet was installed. So, I feel I should not have to pay for that claim if they changed their minds to replace the carpet. By the way, we lived there for 4 years. The last claim is for damaged mini-blinds. I agree they needed replacing, however they charged me $40 each for standard blinds...nothing fancy. (Wal-Mart has them for $4.00) Do I have a right to request receipts that they paid $40 for these or is there any justified complaint I have to the excessive amount they are charging for these? I don't mind paying for what is fair...but they are known to try to give people a hard time when move out time comes around. We've always been good, rent paying tenents and never had problems like this in the past.
Thank you for any help you can provide. I just want to take the proper steps in dealing with this matter. I hope someone can help.
Thank you,
Lori