Apartment deposit

[flyrtt22]

my question is this: i am in south carolina, my husband is a marine and based here. my husband got orders to go to japan for a year, this meant that me and my son were going to move up to new york to be closer to my family. we found an apartment complex that my uncle lives in and we got an apartment. the landlord wanted us to send $400 for half of the security deposit, to hold the apartment for us until we got up there. she had touble getting our check so my uncle wrote her a check and then we paid him back. two weeks before we were supposed to move the military changed my husbands orders and we are now staying here. i let the landlord of the apartment complex know as soon as we did. she now will not return our money. a security deposit is for if something happens to the apartment while living there, we never lived there. we also never signed a lease. the only thing we fill out was a form stating how much money my husband makes because he would be the one paying for the place. no contracts were signed or anything. is it legal for her to keep our money? she said that she has to keep the money for advertising fees and because she wouldn't be able to rent out the apartment by april 1st ( the date we were supposed to move in ). the landlord knows the circumstances why we will be unable to move up there, and still refused to refund our $400. is this legal?

 

[wasabiKev]

I am not an attorney.. but I have had to deal with landlord issues in the past and I greatly empathize with you situation, especially the cross-state aspect. My advice is to purchase the book "Tenants' Rights in New York (Legal Survival Guides)" It will very likely have a section on your situtation and you will be able to find the specific NY law that applies. Once you know the specific law (if it is in your favor), send a letter to the landlord via registered mail. (so there is evidence of the correspondence) In the letter include the legal code they are in violation of (if they are), and tell them that if they do not comply within a set number of days after reciving the letter, then you will be forced to pursue your issue in small claims court. The only problem is that you must be willing to travel to NY to do so. I was able to recover $650 once after a landlord in CA tried to keep my money after I already moved to WA state. If you demonstrate that you know more about the situation legally than they do.. and your willing to be a pain in the neck for them, then they will likely give in. A link to the book I mentioned is here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572481226/qid=986604068/sr=1-1/ref=sc_b_2/103-1803541-9567804
Good Luck!
Kev