My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Massachusetts
Hello, First post here.
I received a Statement of Small claim and am being sued by my former landlord for $1950.
The suit states it is for leaving rental property with no notice and for replacing the dryer we allegedly used until broken.
I have some questions and need some help. First we absolutely did not break the dryer, we used it one week before we moved out and it was working fine. So what are my options here? I cannot believe she is attempting to claim this.
Next, I gave notice approximately 7 days before leaving, it was a month to month tenancy and there was no lease ever signed. I did pay for my last month there.
There is some additional information, first she notified me upon moving in that there was lead paint present in the house and my now 2 year old son lived with me in that house. I expressed concern but she assured me it was fine and that she lived there while she was a baby so not knowing any better I lived there for 2 years with lead paint. Is there any recourse in this matter? There was also exposed asbestos in the basement that I went into regularly.
Secondly when she took my security deposit she did not put it into any type of interest bearing account which from what I have read is not legal.
The tenancy was pretty informal, she verbally agreed to let me pay on the 15th of the month since I work on commission and one month things were tight and she agreed to use the security deposit as a month's payment to help out. We were very friendly until I moved out. When she applied the security deposit as the month's rent we agreed that when I moved out I would pay for my last month there (I paid my full months rent on September 15th and moved out by the end of September) She is also claiming I was a month behind because of using the security deposit but as I said we agreed verbally that because she did that I would pay her last month instead of using the security which I did.
I just feel now doing research after she filed this suit against me that she was doing a lot of illegal things as a landlord that I was not aware of and I am just wondering what I should do and how I should handle this situation?
Thank you for all of your advice.

