Lost security deposit without ever moving or signing the lease

By Alex

Hello everybody,

My wife and I where looking for a place to rent for quite some time during this past winter. We were both accepted to school so we needed to move closer to campus and we finally found this place after a long search. Once we talked to the landlord he said that he needed some kind of commitment from us so he could hold the place and not advertise it anymore so we decided to give him the security deposit, but this was before signing the lease; we decided to meet a different day and sign the lease and get an extra set of keys. Unfortunately after meeting with this guy, we came back to our current apartment and talked to the landlord and explained our situation and told them that we needed to break our lease, but they said that the only way to do that was by paying the cost of advertisement and the rent for the rest of the lease, which would have been too expensive for us. 

The next evening, we called the guy to whom we gave the security deposit, and explained our situation.  He was understanding and told us to look for someone to sublease our current apartment, and that he would hold the one we put a deposit on for two weeks.  We advertised out apartment on craigslist, and after two weeks we still hadn’t found anyone so we called the guy who told us to continue looking and he would keep holding the apartment.  About another two weeks went by, and we called again explaining that we had no luck and would like our security deposit back.  He said that he would also advertise his place, and if he found someone, he would return the deposit.

 Some time later, we noticed he was no longer advertising the apartment so we called yet again and were informed that the place had been rented and the new tenants moved in just a few days earlier.  We set up an appointment with the person to receive our deposit, but he later cancelled on us.  We continued to call to set up a new appointment until finally in the mail we received a letter from him and half our security deposit, saying that he would not refund us in full because it was our fault that they lost money on the apartment while waiting for us to find a sub-letter, despite the fact that they were the ones who told us to look.  We were willing to give up the apartment at that time so that they could find new tenants, but they insisted, and since we still planned on moving, we went along with it.

        We would like to know if we have any rights in this situation protecting us and our security deposit, or if you have any other advice that we could use when talking to this couple again about our money.

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