Unbelievable Florida security deposit claim lawsuit!!!

[Marc Brandon]

Attention all Florida investors/landlords regarding making a claim on tenant's security deposit!! 

I obtained an eviction judgment against a former tenant who failed to pay rent in St. Petersburg, Florida (Pinellas County). After obtaining the judgment, but without my knowledge, tenant's attorney filed a "notice of last known address change re: security deposit" in the eviction case, listing an address belonging to an LLC located in another Florida county. Since I never received a copy of this notice, I was unaware of the address change or that the tenant assigned her security deposit claim rights to the LLC.

Within 30 days of tenant moving out of the property, I sent her a notice of intention to impose a claim on security deposit, via certified mail, to the tenant's last known address since I was unaware of the address change notice. The notice of intention to impose a claim on security deposit was returned to me as undeliverable by the USPS.

Now the LLC has filed a lawsuit against me for not returning the security deposit and/or for not sending the notice, via certified mail, to the LLC's address. Unfortunately it will be my word against the attorney regarding whether I ever received the notice and therefore knew about the address change. As a result, I will end having to pay the full amount of the security deposit and attorney's fees and costs to the attorney, even though I believe I fully complied with Florida law regarding this matter. To make matters worse, I discovered that this same law firm filed over 80 of these type of lawsuits against landlords just in 1 Florida county courthouse. Unbelievable!!!!

I welcome any feedback from other landlords regarding this type of case. Marc Brandon