<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JohnNg:
I have a stroe in San Francisco and 3 years ago were notified by the landlord and his agent to move out so that they can do earthquake retrofit to the building.At that time, we still have a lease of 1 1/2 years left. It took them 2 1/2 years to finish the retrofitt and they say that my lease has expired and they have to doulble my rent if I want to move back in. I felt helpless and wrote to them to have my lease deposit returned and they have ignored my request. I hired a lawyer to write them and it's been 3 weeks and my attorney says that I have to give them resonable time to respond. The request for the deposit has been over 3 months and I feel helpless. I feel that I was wronfully evicted without any type of compensation and that there must be some type of recourse that I can take.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Read your lease as there probably is a clause that states that the lease may be cancelled for just cause such as for construction work that is a fire, life safety, health, building code issue, earthquake damage repair/mitigation etc. Since this lease falls under commercial real property laws you may have less rights than if residential. The landlord may be justified in terminating the lease but you must check to be sure. If they have no such rights you can sue them for breach of contract and ask for compensation. In any case you should at least get your deposit returned in a timely manner and ask for interest in accordance with your lease provisions with respect to the return of security deposits upon lease termination. Three months is way too long to be waiting for a response. And 3 weeks is too long to respond to your attorney. Have your attorney send a final demand letter requesting that the deposit money be returned by a specified date and if it is not returned by the stated date, your attorney will pursue all legal remedies. That is only if you and your attorney are willing to file litigation.
