Landlord skimmed on returning full deposit

By Machel Rucker

We rented a house in July 2011.  In October 2011, I was told by the Management Company that the owner wants to short-sale the home.  We were pissed, because we felt that the owner should have never rented the property if they were unsure they were going to be able to handle the responsibility of paying his mortgage.  We came to agreement with owner’s real estate agent that for a lower rent payment, we would allow people to come and view the home when we were home.  A new owner bought the property in October 2012.  We signed a three month lease with them.  We took great care of the home.  We moved out at the end of December 2012.  I paid for a cleaning crew to professionally clean the home and a carpet cleaning company to leave the carpets professionally done.  There were no issues mentioned to us when I did the walk-through with the real estate agent (the owner’s live in another state and never physically been inside of the house).  More than 30 days later I received a check with a sliver of a piece of paper that notates a few things that they deducted from our deposit.  The deductions were complete rubbish.  The house was built in 2007 and we only lived there about 18 months.  They charged us for cleaning, garage door and 2 faucets.  There were not any issues with any of these items and if there were that would have been pointed out to the real estate person or home inspector during the multiple walk-throughs when the property was being sold.  They took about 14% in deductions that were complete fabrications.  I want our $$ back, we left that home in pristine condition.  Where do I begin?  It is not right for the owner/landlords to completely make up lies and keep a portion of our money. 

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