All Forum Posts by: Marc Brandon

As I previously stated, the former tenant assigned her rights, in writing, to the security deposit to an LLC created by her attorneys. Therefore the former tenant was no longer entitled to the security deposit, or any portion of it, presuming she would have gotten some, or all of it back after vacating the rental property.

Marcus good ideas for protecting yourself in your current lease agreements.  One additional idea is to add a provision stating something to the effect of

"This Lease is governed by the statutory and case law of the State of Florida. Any claims, actions and/or lawsuits based upon and/or arising out of this Lease, including any statutory causes of action arising out of and/or related to this Lease, must be brought in ________ County, Florida."

The significance of this provision is to protect you (landlord) from having to defend yourself in a county other than where you live, where the property is located or where the lease was entered into. In my case, the attorney filed the small claims court case in another county 3.5 hours away.

From now on, I will only use the Florida court e-file system when filing any eviction litigation against former tenants.

I settled the case for $3,000.

Dave thanks for your reply. I am not panicking and have spoken with several attorneys regarding this matter.  Unfortunately in Florida, the attorney was not required to send me the last known address change notice by certified mail. Instead regular mail with the proof of service is all that was required. As a result, if I were to proceed to trial, in all likelihood I would lose and end up having to pay thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and costs. 

While I appreciate some of the comments others have made, they simply do not understand Florida law regarding security deposits and that this particular law firm has found a legal loophole in order to extort money out of landlords all over the state.  I do not see the logic or reasoning in paying an attorney thousands of dollars defending me when in the end, I will probably lose the case and have a judgment against me for significantly more than I can settle for. Again, several experienced attorneys have agreed with my analysis.

Al D. thanks for your reply. I did not have an attorney representing me in the eviction case. The eviction judgment was obtained on 3/22/23. The attorney filed a notice of appearance and notice of last known address re: security deposit on 3/24/23. The pleadings filed with the court by the attorney show a proof of service on me by mail. As previously stated, I never received these pleadings and therefore did not know about the address change when I sent the security deposit notice to the tenant at her last known address on 3/31/23.

Maybe I didn't explain it well in my initial post, but without my knowledge, the tenant assigned her security deposit rights only to the attorney who created a separate LLC. After the eviction judgment was obtained, but without my knowledge, the attorney filed a notice of last known address change in the eviction case. Yes I did send the proper notice regarding imposing a claim on the security deposit to the tenant's last known address, but not to the LLC at a different address. This is what the attorney is focusing on on, that I did not send the security deposit notice to the correct "last known address" and therefore I violated FL 83.49.

The attorney will argue in court that he or his legal assistant mailed the notice of last known address change to me since there is a proof of service filed in the eviction court, but as I previously stated, I never received it and did not know about the attorney until after being served with the summons and complaint about 2 weeks ago.

This attorney has found a very lucrative loophole in the Florida landlord tenant laws and sues many landlords over a technical violation.

Nathan thanks for your response. The security deposit was $1,200, but here in Florida, attorney's fees and costs are recoverable to the prevailing party in cases concerning security deposits. (FL statute 83.49.)  If the landlord is making a claim against the tenant's security deposit, he/she must send a written notice to the tenant's "last known address" within 30 days, via certified mail.

In this case, since the tenant did not pay her last month's and stopped communicating with me, I obtained an eviction judgment. The tenant did not challenge the eviction, but apparently hired an attorney who filed a few documents in the eviction case, but I never received any of these documents.

Later I learned that the attorney convinced the tenant to assign her rights to make a claim for the security deposit (presumably because she could not pay the attorney) to an LLC that the attorney created. As previously stated, I never received a copy of the notice regarding last known address change for security deposit. More than 1 year after obtaining the eviction judgment, the LLC sued me for not returning the security deposit and/or not sending the notice to impose a claim on security deposit to the LLC's address in another Florida county.

Though I sent the notice to the tenant's last known address, via certified mail, I cannot prove that the attorney never sent me the address change notice and therefore run the risk of losing the case at trial. If this happens, the attorney will probably seek thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and costs, far greater than the security deposit.

This is incredibly frustrating since this attorney filed many of these type of cases against landlords throughout Florida!!!

Nathan thanks for your response. The security deposit was $1,200, but here in Florida, attorney's fees and costs are recoverable to the prevailing party in cases concerning security deposits. (FL statute 83.49.)  If the landlord is making a claim against the tenant's security deposit, he/she must send a written notice to the tenant's "last known address" within 30 days, via certified mail.

In this case, since the tenant did not pay her last month's and stopped communicating with me, I obtained an eviction judgment. The tenant did not challenge the eviction, but apparently hired an attorney who filed a few documents in the eviction case, but I never received any of these documents.

Later I learned that the attorney convinced the tenant to assign her rights to make a claim for the security deposit (presumably because she could not pay the attorney) to an LLC that the attorney created. As previously stated, I never received a copy of the notice regarding last known address change for security deposit. More than 1 year after obtaining the eviction judgment, the LLC sued me for not returning the security deposit and/or not sending the notice to impose a claim on security deposit to the LLC's address in another Florida county.

Though I sent the notice to the tenant's last known address, via certified mail, I cannot prove that the attorney never sent me the address change notice and therefore run the risk of losing the case at trial. If this happens, the attorney will probably seek thousands of dollars in attorney's fees and costs, far greater than the security deposit.

This is incredibly frustrating since this attorney filed many of these type of cases against landlords throughout Florida!!!