Suing For Deposit After Sublessees Trashed House
My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: California
This situation is kind of complicated and I'm not sure the best way to explain it, but please let me know if there's anything I need to clarify. Also, forgive me if I'm giving too much detail! It just seems like all the details are important...
The issue centers around a house I was living in with my friend Keli. The total rent was $2200/month and the deposit was $2000. Keli put down half of the deposit and I put down the other half. Keli and her mother were the only tenants on the lease, but the landlord had no problem with people subleasing, as long as he was informed. So I lived there along with our friend Matt. In addition we had a kind of revolving cast of other roommates, mostly short term. None of them signed anything, which was obviously a mistake, but all the terms were made very clear before anyone moved in. The rent was $550/month, the deposit was $500 with an extra $50 for credit check. We were very clear that there was no smoking allowed in the house, no drugs, and minimal alcohol.
In February we had two new roommates move into two empty rooms. Their names were Jake and Phil. Jake was great and things with Phil also seemed fine at first. Then, after a month or two, we noticed his girlfriend Kirsten seemed to be around an awful lot. After two weeks or so we realized she had moved in without him clearing it with us. If he had tried to clear it, we would have said no, because the house wasn't that big! When we realized she was living there we told Phil we'd have to up his rent and the amount owed for bills. He said that was fine but never paid extra. We hassled him about it but he still didn't pay more, he just became very hostile.
Then they started drinking all the time. I'm talking going through a huge gallon jug of vodka every other night between Phil, Kirsten and Matt. The reason we said no alcohol is that Matt was a recovering alcoholic, so obviously him drinking with them was a bad thing. Anyway, they drank all the time, left the house a pigsty, and in general made themselves obnoxious. This was towards the end of March/beginning of April.
Our lease was going to be up at the end of May, which we had told Phil. When Phil moved in we told him we'd probably end up renewing but weren't sure. After living with Phil, and after Matt fell off the wagon, Keli and I decided not to renew the lease. We told everyone we'd be leaving, and Jake said he'd take over the house since he didn't want to move again. We said fine, here's the property manager's info, set that up, have fun.
Things continued pretty mellow for that month. The drinking didn't stop, nor did the mess and obnoxiousness, but Keli and I found a new place and made plans to move. During this time neither Jake nor Phil nor anyone contacted the property manager to see about taking over the house. When they finally got ahold of the property manager, there were only three weeks left on the lease, and the property manager said they couldn't take it over. This was probably due to the fact that Keli and I had withheld rent twice (legally, with documentation) to get certain things fixed when the management wouldn't deal with it.
Anyway, Phil and Kirsten became enraged that they couldn't take over the lease. They kept saying that they hadn't had 30 days notice, and they were being "evicted" because of us, etc. We told them we were sorry but there wasn't anything we could do about it. We made plans to move out, hired a carpet cleaner, explained to Phil, Kirsten and Matt the areas they were responsible for cleaning, etc. Then both Keli and I had to leave for a week or two (Keli had to deal with the lease for our new place, in a different city, and I had to help my dad in the hospital).
While we were gone, Phil and Kirsten threw a party. They trashed the house even more, smoked in the house, put cigarette burns in the carpet and also all manner of stains. When we came home, there was actually a huge bowl of two day old spaghetti with meatsauce upside down on the carpet in the middle of the living room. Someone had defecated in the side yard. They broke some of my furniture and some expensive electronic equipment was "missing". Obviously, we were pissed since it was only two days until we had to be out. We spent an entire day cleaning the whole house except the kitchen and Phil's bathroom (because he said he'd clean those). We also hired a carpet cleaner to clean the entire house, planning to take that out of the deposits given to us by all the roommates.
Anyway, I'm sure you can see where this is going. They didn't clean the things they'd promised to, and in the space of 24 hours managed to get the carpet everywhere in the house filthy again just after it had been cleaned. They took a huge box of magazines and spread them all over the lawn. Also, Phil tried to steal my TV (thankfully we caught him). We learned from the landlord that he's keeping our entire deposit and might pursue some legal action to recover additional damages for us.
Okay, if you read all of that, you're a champ! Now to my questions...
1) Despite having no signed sublease, is there any way to sue these douchebags for the rest of the deposit money, plus the money lost through their breaking of my furniture and the stolen electronics?
- Jake has said he'll act as a witness to everything, and we took a lot of pictures.
2) Can the landlord sue us for additional money? And if he does can we pass that on to Phil, Kirsten and Matt?
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide with this mess!
Re: Suing For Deposit After Sublessees Trashed House
Quote:
Quoting
avaxcontrol
Can the landlord sue us for additional money?
The landlord can pursue you for every cent of damage.
Quote:
Quoting avaxcontrol
And if he does can we pass that on to Phil, Kirsten and Matt? Despite having no signed sublease, is there any way to sue these douchebags for the rest of the deposit money, plus the money lost through their breaking of my furniture and the stolen electronics?
If the landlord sues you, you can bring a claim against the in the same lawsuit, or either way bring a separate lawsuit, and try to have them held responsible to indemnify you for the financial losses they caused you to suffer. I suggest making sure that everything is resolved with the landlord before pursuing them, because if you sue them first then get another big bill for damages you'll normally have prevented yourself from being able to pursue them for the additional amount. (And then there's the joy of collection....)