Duke
12-10-2010, 01:52 PM
Do I just have bad luck or do other people have as much problems with rental properties as I do?
Since graduating college several years ago, I’ve rented 3 different places. Two were apartment complexes and the other was a privately owned townhouse. I’ve honestly had problems with all 3. The first apartment complex basically stole my security deposit which I’m still trying to get back years later. I’ve been hesitant to take them too small claims court because I wasn’t sure it was worth the time, money, or energy. However, after having issues with the other complex, I’m being to believe legal action is the only way to get these companies to listen/act. And it’s really starting to become a matter of principle. I left the place in much better shape than it was when I moved in and really feel like I deserve my security deposit back. I had a lot of issues with getting things fixed in the privately owned townhouse but in the end the owner did kind of make it up to us and didn’t charge us for the final half a month we lived there. Although, living without air conditioning for over 3 weeks in the middle of a record high summer was pretty unbearable. But I do feel like he worked with us to reach a compromise we could all accept and live with.
The third and current place (the other complex) has pretty much screwed up our account’s bill since we moved in. Actually, it’s not pretty much they literally entered our first payment amount and security deposit wrong. They shorted our initial month’s payment by over $260. However, because they also coded our security deposit as a payment, it appeared like we had a credit. This all resulted in us not being aware our account was like $264.22 short because it always appeared as a credit and they never notified us that they we short paid our first month’s rent according to their records. Our lease also states that we are responsible for water/sewage. Basically the complex pays one lump bill each month and then bills each individual apartment for the amount they owe. However, because our account had a credit they would just use part of that credit to pay our water/sewage, which meant we never received a single bill. We even told them multiple times we hadn’t been billed. They would simply look up our account and say nope your account is marked as paid one of your roommates must have paid so your fine. I admit I knew this was wrong since none of us paid and we even told them that something wasn’t right. They just kind of were like nope your accounts fine.
Anyways a few months ago we get this letter stating we owe over $500. So I go to them and was like this is impossible. They look at our account and said that the letter was a mistake and we actually have a $500 plus credit. All the sudden, they were like wait that seems strange (even though we told them that multiple times) and they basically spent the next 3 months investigating why our account was messed up. How it took them that long to see that they posted our security deposit in the wrong column, I’ll never know. But for the next 2 months, whenever we’d pay (the full month payment despite the fake credit on our account), we’d ask if they had figured out what was wrong with the account and they would say something like nope we had to send it off to our corporate offices because we just can’t figure it out. I even told them specifically that we’ve paid the exact amount every month but never paid water/sewage because we’ve never been billed. Well at the beginning of this month I go in there with our full payment and ask “did you get our account straightened out?” This time the answer was different, they told me we owed about $400 more than our monthly amount. I just looked at her and said they cannot be right. She asked if I was sure and I responded yes. Like we’ve said multiple times, I don’t doubt we owe money since we’ve never been billed or paid sewer/water. She did a quick guestimation in her head and said well that would only be about $160 at most, so we’ll have to examine your account again. I was like fine and again repeated if/when we are billed for the exact amount of our water/sewage we will gladly pay it. She responded that she would let us know.
Wednesday we get a letter saying we owe about $450 and if we don’t pay in 5 days they will again eviction proceedings. So I go and demand a complete print out of our entire account since its obvious they will never fix it on their own. After pulling old bank statements, cashed checks, etc. I discover the initial $264 error and calculate exactly what we owe in water. I go there this morning and nicely point out the errors on our account and ask her to correct it. She says I don’t have the authority to do that and the corporate offices are the only ones that can change a recorded payment but thanks me for pointing out the error and says she doesn’t know how it happens. I also say that I need an official bill for our water/sewage amounts because I refuse to pay anything without documentation for my records since they are terrible at math. Plus they even incorrectly coded one of the water bills as electricity (which we pay directly to the power company). She explains that she can’t get me a bill yet because it will show the full amount we owe and not just the water/sewage charges. She then explains that we will still have to pay the $50 late fees because we didn’t pay water/sewage on time. I just looked at her and said we couldn’t have paid because we were never billed and our account had an incorrect credit for months. She then says the credit is irrelevant because you would have been billed anyways. Even though she had just said bills show the entire amount you owe previously (so if we didn’t owe we wouldn’t have been billed). I just kind of stared at her and she agreed to speak with the corporate offices about it and the incorrect payment (that I proved was recorded wrong).
I told her that if/when we get a water/sewage bill we would pay only that ($124 based on what I calculated from our screwed up account) and would not be paying the $50 late charge. I’m supposed to speak with her again Monday after she works with corporate today. I swear I will not be paying that $50 and would rather face eviction charges than give them an extra dime simply because they suck at math and running a business. I might feel differently if we purposely never paid the water bill hoping we could get away with it but we told them multiple times something wasn’t right.
Since graduating college several years ago, I’ve rented 3 different places. Two were apartment complexes and the other was a privately owned townhouse. I’ve honestly had problems with all 3. The first apartment complex basically stole my security deposit which I’m still trying to get back years later. I’ve been hesitant to take them too small claims court because I wasn’t sure it was worth the time, money, or energy. However, after having issues with the other complex, I’m being to believe legal action is the only way to get these companies to listen/act. And it’s really starting to become a matter of principle. I left the place in much better shape than it was when I moved in and really feel like I deserve my security deposit back. I had a lot of issues with getting things fixed in the privately owned townhouse but in the end the owner did kind of make it up to us and didn’t charge us for the final half a month we lived there. Although, living without air conditioning for over 3 weeks in the middle of a record high summer was pretty unbearable. But I do feel like he worked with us to reach a compromise we could all accept and live with.
The third and current place (the other complex) has pretty much screwed up our account’s bill since we moved in. Actually, it’s not pretty much they literally entered our first payment amount and security deposit wrong. They shorted our initial month’s payment by over $260. However, because they also coded our security deposit as a payment, it appeared like we had a credit. This all resulted in us not being aware our account was like $264.22 short because it always appeared as a credit and they never notified us that they we short paid our first month’s rent according to their records. Our lease also states that we are responsible for water/sewage. Basically the complex pays one lump bill each month and then bills each individual apartment for the amount they owe. However, because our account had a credit they would just use part of that credit to pay our water/sewage, which meant we never received a single bill. We even told them multiple times we hadn’t been billed. They would simply look up our account and say nope your account is marked as paid one of your roommates must have paid so your fine. I admit I knew this was wrong since none of us paid and we even told them that something wasn’t right. They just kind of were like nope your accounts fine.
Anyways a few months ago we get this letter stating we owe over $500. So I go to them and was like this is impossible. They look at our account and said that the letter was a mistake and we actually have a $500 plus credit. All the sudden, they were like wait that seems strange (even though we told them that multiple times) and they basically spent the next 3 months investigating why our account was messed up. How it took them that long to see that they posted our security deposit in the wrong column, I’ll never know. But for the next 2 months, whenever we’d pay (the full month payment despite the fake credit on our account), we’d ask if they had figured out what was wrong with the account and they would say something like nope we had to send it off to our corporate offices because we just can’t figure it out. I even told them specifically that we’ve paid the exact amount every month but never paid water/sewage because we’ve never been billed. Well at the beginning of this month I go in there with our full payment and ask “did you get our account straightened out?” This time the answer was different, they told me we owed about $400 more than our monthly amount. I just looked at her and said they cannot be right. She asked if I was sure and I responded yes. Like we’ve said multiple times, I don’t doubt we owe money since we’ve never been billed or paid sewer/water. She did a quick guestimation in her head and said well that would only be about $160 at most, so we’ll have to examine your account again. I was like fine and again repeated if/when we are billed for the exact amount of our water/sewage we will gladly pay it. She responded that she would let us know.
Wednesday we get a letter saying we owe about $450 and if we don’t pay in 5 days they will again eviction proceedings. So I go and demand a complete print out of our entire account since its obvious they will never fix it on their own. After pulling old bank statements, cashed checks, etc. I discover the initial $264 error and calculate exactly what we owe in water. I go there this morning and nicely point out the errors on our account and ask her to correct it. She says I don’t have the authority to do that and the corporate offices are the only ones that can change a recorded payment but thanks me for pointing out the error and says she doesn’t know how it happens. I also say that I need an official bill for our water/sewage amounts because I refuse to pay anything without documentation for my records since they are terrible at math. Plus they even incorrectly coded one of the water bills as electricity (which we pay directly to the power company). She explains that she can’t get me a bill yet because it will show the full amount we owe and not just the water/sewage charges. She then explains that we will still have to pay the $50 late fees because we didn’t pay water/sewage on time. I just looked at her and said we couldn’t have paid because we were never billed and our account had an incorrect credit for months. She then says the credit is irrelevant because you would have been billed anyways. Even though she had just said bills show the entire amount you owe previously (so if we didn’t owe we wouldn’t have been billed). I just kind of stared at her and she agreed to speak with the corporate offices about it and the incorrect payment (that I proved was recorded wrong).
I told her that if/when we get a water/sewage bill we would pay only that ($124 based on what I calculated from our screwed up account) and would not be paying the $50 late charge. I’m supposed to speak with her again Monday after she works with corporate today. I swear I will not be paying that $50 and would rather face eviction charges than give them an extra dime simply because they suck at math and running a business. I might feel differently if we purposely never paid the water bill hoping we could get away with it but we told them multiple times something wasn’t right.