Last And Security Deposit

[Rob Dorney]

I have a Tenant that moved out, She paid me first , last and security when she moved in. I gave her last mo nth back when she moved out as Section 8 Paid me Last months. After she moved out I found out that there was a great deal of Damage to the unit. Smoke Damage in Every room, Every door in place was cracked and needed to be replaced. She left garbage furniture behind where I needed to pay to get rid of it etc. I then put a stop payment on the checks as it cost me $4500 to repair the unit. Her security deposit and last mo nth equals 2600. So I am out 1900.  She is not happy. Everyone I talk to says  give her the 1150 it's not worth th headache and I will lose in court. On Principle its kills me to pay her when she didn't care about my apartment. What would you do? Pay her or fight her in court? I have never gone to court but I have been told Judges typically favor the tenant. 

[Mike McCarthy]

@Rob Dorney what state are you in? What does your state/city landlord tenant laws say about using rent for repairs?

If you do end up in court, the judge won’t just side with you or them. It depends who followed the law correctly. Always make sure you know the law!!

[James Mc Ree]

Check your Section 8 lease.  My first guess is you are not allowed to collect the last month's rent on Section 8.  Section 8 and/or the judge might penalize you for breach of contract and you lose on that point.

Check your landlord tenant law.  In addition to @Mike McCarthy's comment, you might not be allowed to collect the last month's rent as it might be considered additional security.  You might be OK in year 1 as 2x 1 month's rent might be allowed for year 1, but maybe not year 2.  You might have a different problem if you are in year 2 or beyond.  PA does not allow last month's rent to be collected up front and limits security deposits to 1x monthly rent starting year 2.

How did your inspections and repair visits go?  Was this recent damage or accumulated over time?

You do have at least 2 more options: (1) Inform Section 8 the tenant is moving out owing you money for damages and (2) Sue the tenant for damages.  Informing S8 the tenant is leaving owing money can be devastating to the tenant.  It can cause them to be completely kicked out of the program and the tenant becomes homeless.  That doesn't help you recover damages, but might give some motivation to your tenant to come to some agreement.  Suing probably doesn't help much since your tenant likely has very little in assets.

If this were me, I would first check to see if I am already illegal with Section 8 or the state.  If not, I would pursue a discussion with the tenant threatening to report her to Section 8 if she did not pay for the damage and try to negotiate an agreement.  I had this exact situation, but the tenant had no assets.  I let her go and ate a $8,000 loss rather than make my tenant and her little girl homeless.  It is a 7 year wait where I am to get a Section 8 voucher.  She would be starting over.