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Updated almost 8 years ago,
Tenant never moved in do I keep the deposit?
Just wanted some insight on this. My tenenant became very needy, and began requesting weird things, (all new windows on house, deposit back, discount on first months rent) because the house was "Unlivable" with screen doors not offering security and old windows. Nothing was different from when she had seen it half a month ago.
We accomodates somewhat, and painted a couple doors she thought were "unacceptable" and fixed a few other things, and bought screen doors. Then she demanded deposit back and we mutually agreed to terminate the lease.
My question is should i keep the entire deposit, or only the portion related to items we fixed/doors we bought, as well as prorated rent for the first few days of the month. The security deposit portion of my lease is listed below. I dont want this to end up in a lawsuit i cant win. My lawyer has advised I should return only a portion based on what we had to do in repairs, in lieu of asking him again and paying ungodly rates, I wanted to see what this community thinks.
My lawyer says since we mutually ended the contract, this line does not apply any more...
The full term of the Agreement has been completed and proper notice has been given.
My main question is, should i keep the deposit and move on, dealing with any issues that come up? Or, return the portion that is the difference in all repairs and requests we accomodated, as per the lawyers advice?
Thanks
Nick