security deposit and early lease termination fee

[Misty Rossman]

Las Vegas, NV> 

We moved out of our rental property early (by two months) with an agreement to pay $2,850 early termination fee. We have a refundable deposit of $2,700. We did a move out walk through with the property management company's realtor receiving a clean report and no damage stating the property was move in ready for the next tenants. They first told us we can apply the deposit return to the early termination fee and we would only owe the difference. We expected to get a bill for the remaining amount of $150. 

Three months later we get a notice stating we owe the $2850 plus they charged us all these unreasonable charges withholding $2,286 and refunding us only $414 via check! We had a consultation with an attorney and we have every right to ask for our entire deposit back. But we are not sure which road to take.

1. We can pay the $2850 and take them to small claims court asking for the remaining $2,286 of our security deposit back.

2. We can take the $2850 and subtract the $2,286 and only pay them the difference of $564 and see if they try to take us to court.

3. We can sit back and not pay anything to see if they take us to small claims court for $2,850 and counter sue for the $2,286 security deposit we owe. 

Not sure which avenue to take. Has anyone had any experience dealing with this? The property management company does not want to help us and for months we have been requesting receipts of this "damage" they claim we owe them that was deducted from the deposit and they have not given us anything. Help!