Arizona.
An attorney advised me to send the landlord a certified letter detailing the condition of this condo upon move in.
I tried to do that and the landlord is declining to accept the letter. Delivery was declined or attempted 4 times and he won't pick it up at the post office.
The background is that I drove across country and found a place to live in the military's Automated Housing Referral Network online.
I signed the lease and accepted the keys in September without seeing the storm and water damage from a roof leak over the kitchen. There was water that came through the ceiling into the cabinets and the microwave and onto the stove. It also shorted out the outlets in that wall (those work now).
The landlord's consultant and I walked through after I accepted the keys and we found the water damage in the walk-through. She said she would provide a copy of the move-in inventory to me, but she did not. I tried several times to obtain a copy of it from her and she ignored my calls and emails.
The landlord has since broken relations with her, allegedly because she collected my security deposit on his behalf and then did not turn it over to him for a month.
As an aside, the landlord did not send someone out to look at the roof for 4 months, so I paid an inspector $200 because I wanted to know how bad a problem it was. It turns out it was a "10-year" storm and the roof has not leaked again, and the inspector thinks it came in through a vent over the stove.
When I moved in, there was no air conditioning for several days and no hot water, but the "consultant" had a handy man she knew fix those things and now they work okay.
However, little things have broken since then that the lease says the landlord is not obligated to fix, like stove burners, the dryer, etc. Plus one toilet.
The landlord lives 3 hours away in another state and frequently goes away for weeks at a time to Mexico.
I know I have no grounds (according to the attorney) to just depart here unless the roof keeps leaking etc. and then only if I provided proper notice. That does not apply right now as this place is habitable.
I sent in a mold test to a lab because I discovered a black substance in the kitchen cabinets over the stove where the water came in.
To complicate matters, I have a job interview out of state. I am probably going to have to leave here early anyway.
I can tell I won't have a way to prove that I did not cause the damage, etc. and all I have are emails I sent to the landlord about what broke.
I know if I departed early, I would need to find another tenant for this place, which I am thinking will be tough with all these things broken in here.
Do I need to try to hire a process server to serve the letter on the landlord or what do I do now?
I need some record that I did not cause the water damage to the kitchen and that I let the landlord know about it, and now, all these other things are breaking and he is under no obligation to fix them, per the lease.
I can return to the attorney but every time I talk to him it is $200+.
An attorney advised me to send the landlord a certified letter detailing the condition of this condo upon move in.
I tried to do that and the landlord is declining to accept the letter. Delivery was declined or attempted 4 times and he won't pick it up at the post office.
The background is that I drove across country and found a place to live in the military's Automated Housing Referral Network online.
I signed the lease and accepted the keys in September without seeing the storm and water damage from a roof leak over the kitchen. There was water that came through the ceiling into the cabinets and the microwave and onto the stove. It also shorted out the outlets in that wall (those work now).
The landlord's consultant and I walked through after I accepted the keys and we found the water damage in the walk-through. She said she would provide a copy of the move-in inventory to me, but she did not. I tried several times to obtain a copy of it from her and she ignored my calls and emails.
The landlord has since broken relations with her, allegedly because she collected my security deposit on his behalf and then did not turn it over to him for a month.
As an aside, the landlord did not send someone out to look at the roof for 4 months, so I paid an inspector $200 because I wanted to know how bad a problem it was. It turns out it was a "10-year" storm and the roof has not leaked again, and the inspector thinks it came in through a vent over the stove.
When I moved in, there was no air conditioning for several days and no hot water, but the "consultant" had a handy man she knew fix those things and now they work okay.
However, little things have broken since then that the lease says the landlord is not obligated to fix, like stove burners, the dryer, etc. Plus one toilet.
The landlord lives 3 hours away in another state and frequently goes away for weeks at a time to Mexico.
I know I have no grounds (according to the attorney) to just depart here unless the roof keeps leaking etc. and then only if I provided proper notice. That does not apply right now as this place is habitable.
I sent in a mold test to a lab because I discovered a black substance in the kitchen cabinets over the stove where the water came in.
To complicate matters, I have a job interview out of state. I am probably going to have to leave here early anyway.
I can tell I won't have a way to prove that I did not cause the damage, etc. and all I have are emails I sent to the landlord about what broke.
I know if I departed early, I would need to find another tenant for this place, which I am thinking will be tough with all these things broken in here.
Do I need to try to hire a process server to serve the letter on the landlord or what do I do now?
I need some record that I did not cause the water damage to the kitchen and that I let the landlord know about it, and now, all these other things are breaking and he is under no obligation to fix them, per the lease.
I can return to the attorney but every time I talk to him it is $200+.
