Previous Landlord Not Forwarding Previous Lease Down Payment

[Kaulin Galluzzo]

I recently purchased a property in Akron, Ohio. The tenants that live there have lived there for two years.

During the first lease a security deposit was collected by the previous Landlord and rolled to the second one.

However, the second lease does not explicitly state that it was rolled over from the previous lease and it was simply an agreement between the previous Landlord and the tenants.

During closing the security deposit was never applied as a credit and the previous owner is stating that he doesn't have to pay us because "it is an incurred expense on the new owners because it wasn't explicit in the closing contract." This doesn't seem right.

Shouldn't the security deposit transfer to us from the lease?

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks!