What is the name of your state? California
We moved out of our rental house on the 31st of March at 7:00pm. After the 21st day of waiting we decided to send the former Landlord a demand letter asking for our entire deposit because they had not provided us with either a deposit in full or a detail invoice and receipts for any deposit not being refunded. We sent that letter certified first class mail on the 23rd. We stipulated in the letter we expected our deposit in full within 10 days. On the 2nd of May they mailed us a certified letter which we received on the 3rd. Inside there was what she called an itemized statement that ate up our entire $1,300 deposit. There was one "receipt" for the carpet which they said they completely replaced (for resale). The "receipt" was a quote that was highly redacted. The only items you can read is the address and the price. The actual merchandise and material is completely blacked out. Also it says page 1 of 9 and we only got one page. That charge was $970, then they decided to thrown in two $125 charges for exterior and interior damage and on charge for $110 for interior cleaning. No other receipts besides the highly redacted quote from Lowe's. On the 3rd, once she saw I accepted the letter, she asked if I had questions about the invoice. I said it wasn't acceptable and that we would be pursuing them in small claims court for up to 3 x the initial deposit and also asked for no further communications because she offered to return the deposit but immediately pursue us for damages. We filed our small claims court papers at 9:00 this morning. Am I doing everything right?
We moved out of our rental house on the 31st of March at 7:00pm. After the 21st day of waiting we decided to send the former Landlord a demand letter asking for our entire deposit because they had not provided us with either a deposit in full or a detail invoice and receipts for any deposit not being refunded. We sent that letter certified first class mail on the 23rd. We stipulated in the letter we expected our deposit in full within 10 days. On the 2nd of May they mailed us a certified letter which we received on the 3rd. Inside there was what she called an itemized statement that ate up our entire $1,300 deposit. There was one "receipt" for the carpet which they said they completely replaced (for resale). The "receipt" was a quote that was highly redacted. The only items you can read is the address and the price. The actual merchandise and material is completely blacked out. Also it says page 1 of 9 and we only got one page. That charge was $970, then they decided to thrown in two $125 charges for exterior and interior damage and on charge for $110 for interior cleaning. No other receipts besides the highly redacted quote from Lowe's. On the 3rd, once she saw I accepted the letter, she asked if I had questions about the invoice. I said it wasn't acceptable and that we would be pursuing them in small claims court for up to 3 x the initial deposit and also asked for no further communications because she offered to return the deposit but immediately pursue us for damages. We filed our small claims court papers at 9:00 this morning. Am I doing everything right?
