Security Deposit Withholding

[Mark Taylor]

We lived in a really nice house for about 7 months and our landlord sold it. We were aware that this could happen, but the problem is that we had a tear in the carpet that we knew would need to be replaced. We were moved to another property with the same landlord and we were thankful for his efforts in preparing that property. We signed a new lease for this property and it was listed that a 700 dollar security deposit was on this property. It was not in move in condition but we volunteered to help paint and normal things like re applying panneling on the walls for him. We lived there for around 4 months and had not been informed of the damages on the other property so we took it as it had been replaced by the new owners. We moved out of the other property a couple weeks ago and recieved a letter in the mail stating that it costed 450 dollars out of our depsit to replace the whole room because of a "12x12" hole in the carpet that could not be patched. The tear was no more than "6x6" And we were not informed of these damages within 45 days of moving out of the other property. Are we still legally responsible to pay those. That and is 450 dollars reasonable to repair the whole room. We havent been shown a receipt, nor did we ever do a walkthrough of that property when we left.