My question involves court procedures for the state of: Kansas

Hello!

I will keep this as short as I can. My fiance and I have been contesting around $700.00 in charges after moving out of my apartment and into a new home. I won't go into details (for brevity) but I am contesting them on the basis some are false claims of damage or are in violation of my lease and Kansas state law on the subject.

I have contacted the apartment complex in person and spoke with the assistant manager. She said she would see what she could do about dismissing some of those charges. She informed me she'd need to contact her corporate branch, based in Michigan. About a week later she stated that she could not dismiss any charges and that we can appeal in writing to the corporate office, which we did. I expressed that I wished to contest the charges and gave them my details soI could explain in detail my problems with the bill.

We received a generic letter from our apartment complex, not corporate, stating that they have investigated our claim and we will still need to pay within 14 days of the date on the letter or they'd sell the debt to a collector. I wrote a 7 page letter detailing why I was contesting the charges citing the lease and law and sent it to corporate via certified mail. 13 days after the date on the first letter I began receiving calls from a collections agency. It should also be noted the online payment service that I was asked to pay on would not allow me to log on to pay. It said something along the lines of "your profile is recognized but you aren't authorized on this site anymore", which was noted in my second letter. I also found the corporate office's phone number but it gives you an automatic voicemail system and you can never speak to a human directly. I left a message asking for a call back on the matter. I never received one.

We didn't hear back for at least 3 weeks after the second letter. The collections calls stopped after about a week. I thought perhaps they decided to reconsider, but then I received another call from a collector. I called the corporate office again and left another message asking to speak with someone to avoid civil litigation, but was never contacted. I also filled out a complaint with the Better Business Bureau due to their lack of communication in the supposed appeals process.

Today I got a response in writing from the local apartment complex again, which was the exact same with the exception of a line added about "responding to your correspondence" on this date.

I have had enough trying to deal with these people through the mail or over the phone and am at the point where I feel like my only option is to go to small claims court, but it brings up a few questions for me.

1. In the state of Kansas I can sue for 1.5 times the amount a landlord is withholding. They are withholding a 99 dollar deposit, but are demanding a 700 dollar payment, does this figure only include the 99 dollars of my money they actually have?

2. Should I subpoena the manager of the apartment complex to court or should I subpoena the owner of the corporate office? I have read that you should sue the corporate office, but a friend has suggested I could simply file against the complex and use the manager as the defendant.

3. If I do file against the corporate office in Michigan, how do I find the owner or representative that needs to be served the paperwork? I have researched this company and cannot find any information on any officers at all. They are very good about covering their tracks in that way.

4. Is it normal to have to hire a company to serve my papers or can my local court fax the documents to the local sheriff's office in Michigan to serve them?

Thanks so much for your time. Please let me know if you know any or all of the answers I'm looking for.