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  1. #1

    Default Liability For Rent After Moving Over Safety Concerns

    My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Indiana

    I copied and pasted this email that I sent to a lawyer two days ago. I have not received a response so it has made us wonder if we have anything here. We just need some advice on what to do. We would like to settle the debt for now but take this to court to get our money back. We are in a time crunch because of buying a home. That is the only reason we have to pay this.

    I am writing you today to get legal advice about something that happened three years ago to my husband and I. We rented from a property here in Indianapolis by the the name of Senate Square. About our last two months before the lease was up, our apartment got shot into with a gun. This was a random act of violence. At the time our daughter was 9 months old and the bullets went into the apartment about two feet from her room. This was a very scary situation for us. We had other problems with the apartment complex such as having a leak in one of the bathrooms constantly that it created mold on the carpet. At the time when this happened we thought it was no longer safe to stay there. We talked to the office to see if we could work something out to leave a month early as we only had one month left. The office manager avoided me and never returned my phone calls. We decided to go a head with leaving and gave a thirty day notice and cleaned the apartment very well before we left. The only damage left was the bathroom leak that was never properly fixed and the bullet holes in the apartment that never got patched. We started to get letters about three months later stating that we owed money. My in-laws have a friend that is a lawyer and provided us with some letters hoping it would maybe get them to reconsider the debt. They no longer sent us letters that we owed any thing. My husband and I are currently working on buying a home. Come to find out three years later, they have reported us to the credit bureau. We would like to know if we have a case here to take legal action? I tried calling them today to try and settle the amount of $648.45 only because we have until April 1st to take this debt off our report so we can proceed with purchasing the house that we have already found. I offered them $200 and they said no and tried to make me feel like I was wrong for only offering that amount. They do have record of the letters that the lawyer had sent and we don't think that the lawyer we were working with is in this field. We feel out of principle we don't owe them anything. For now we have considered paying them so we can go further with buying the house and in the event we do that can we still take them to court to get our settlement money back?

    I did file a police report the day the shooting happened and we do have pictures of the bullet holes with a newspaper to show the date.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
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    OH10
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    17,019

    Default Re: Liability For Rent After Moving Over Safety Concerns

    It doesn't sound like you have proof of anything except that you were unsettled and chose to move early, thus the balance due. I would pay it and walk away.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    98,846

    Default Re: Liability For Rent After Moving Over Safety Concerns

    The mere fact that an act of violence occurs in or around an apartment complex does not give a tenant the right to unilaterally terminate a lease. You've worked with a lawyer, so I expect your lawyer has already explained that to you.

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