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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Location
    Mississippi
    Posts
    1

    Unhappy Moved Out from Month-To-Month, Landlord Suing for Repairs

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

    Signed a 1 year lease Jan 2012 with my girlfriend and 2 infant and 1 small dog. We paid $1200 deposit, $800/month.
    For 4 months (Oct-Jan) I was calling and asking for renewal, in which the landlord kept putting it aside and ignoring my request. Nothing was verbally communicated aside from "We would like to sign a new lease". I visited the landlord and paid rent as usual for Jan 2013. There were no verbal contracts regarding a 1-year lease or even a verbal month-to-month agreement. We paid rent until May 2014. We called about 2 weeks into May and explained since we were doing month-to-month, we were going to move out by June. Landlord said that's fine and as long as we were out by 1st, we wouldn't need to pay June's rent. Said he thought Lease stated if not given 30 day notice, a month's rent would be required. I told him that wasn't in the lease, but I'll look over it. I read through our lease to which nothing was expressed about requiring rent if 30 day notice wasn't given. I don't have it in front of me, but I believe it said something along the lines of 'must give 30 day notice before vacating' but not expressing repercussions. Nothing stating auto-renewal either.

    When I turned the keys in on the 1st of june I gave him a forwarding address to where I can be reached, current phone number, and explained the condition of the house. I didn't hear from him until 2nd week of July, when I received a letter from an attorney's office asking for collection of debt for repairs (upwards of $5000). Repairs listed consisted of replacing carpet, painting walls, trash removal, stove part replacements, refrigerator repair, smoke alarm replacement, window repair, and $900 in Rent.

    When I turned the keys in I explained to him the carpets didn't get vacuumed before we left, the walls DID need repainted, some canned food was left in the cabinets, and there were boxes of 'junk' left in the garage, but everything else functioned and was just as we moved in. While we lived there we were trying to potty train 2 toddlers and I expressed to him we tried cleaning the carpets after accidents, but they may need professionally cleaned. I knew between painting, carpet cleaning, and trash removal that there wasn't going to be much left of the deposit. I tried to be as honest and open with him as possible.

    We found out during our stay that this person wasn't the honest up-front land lord we signed our lease with and didn't really care about fixing our needs. He got away with as little as possible as cheap as possible.
    Any repairs that needed done to the house were always done by "a buddy" who would come fix it to his convenience (sometimes taking up to 2-3 weeks for a simple repair); 2 and a half years we lived there, we never had a 'Professional' repairman enter the property. We often times had to do our own minor repairs because he wouldn't. (Climbing under the house during the winter to fix heater ducts, fix plumbing, etc)

    We moved out because we were tired of trying to work with him on repairs, harassed us about mowing the yard every week(even going as far as claiming the city sent him letters about the property, but not being able to supply us with copies), complained about parking our vehicles, complained about our guests, never fixed rodent problem, continually accused us of having people live with us, Etc.

    We've never had 1 problem with any of our previous landlords and certainly never been to court before.
    We don't know how to go about fighting his exorbitant and spurious claims. We tried to do some research, but not much luck.
    I read something about if a landlord puts certain unlawful language in the lease, the lease can be voided and the tenant not being held accountable for breaking the lease. Is that true?
    I also found "A landlord who fails to provide a written statement within thirty days of termination of the tenancy and receipt of the tenant's mailing address or delivery instructions shall forfeit all rights to withhold any portion of the rental deposit." - in which landlord could be sued for plus damages. Does this apply to Indiana?
    Would it be financially wise to hire a lawyer/attorney to help with this?

    I'm not out to get anyone but I don't want anyone to get over on me either just because we don't know any better. We were rushing so much the last week, we forgot to take pictures of the house after we vacated, so I know that's not going to help our case. My last phone broke so I don't have all of the pictures and text messages anymore of problems from the house.
    I honestly believe since he knew we were cleaning up our credit to buy a house, this is his way of 'getting back at us' for leaving spur of the moment and to make a few bucks in the process.
    (I found out after us living there for a year we knew a lot of the same people, hence my harsh judgement of his character)

    The letter stated if they don't get a request for validation or payment within 30 days, they're going to seek judgement. I just want this to end fairly.
    Any and all help/guidance would be very appreciated.

    Thank you and Sorry for such a long post.

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

    Default Re: Moved Out from Month-To-Month, Landlord Suing for Repairs

    You must give a one month move out notice by law as a month to month tenant. The landlord has 45 days from that point to send you a status update or refund of your deposit. It sounds like your leaving the unit with back rent due, garbage and defects could easily result in thousands in damages.

    Ind. Code § 32-31-3-12 Return of deposits; deductions; liability

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