being sued before our 30 day notice is up

[mrssgtsprinkle]

My husband and I were just served a summons to court for failure to pay rent and not willing to give property back to landlord. We have given our landlord a 30 day notice stating we will be out by Jan. 16th 2009 and we kept a copy for ourselves. In the 30 day notice we forfeited our deposit as our rent for Dec. and were planning to give him the keys to the house on the 31st of Dec. which is today. We also found him in our house today before we had gotten everything out. We are now finish with getting things out. Is there anything we can sue our landlord with or make it harder on him? I am 38 1/2 weeks pregnant and he really stressing me out. I just want to make things a little harder on him like he has been doing for us.

 

[jacksgal]

"You" do not get to make decision on what deposit is for? Deposits are for damages or normal wear and tear a Landlord must correct before rerenting a place. That is likely why you are being sued. The suit is just and you now face an eviction on your record

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

Jacksgal is correct, as always. The landlord gets to decide whether the security deposit will be used for owed rent, not the tenants. It is often recommended that the landlord not use the security deposit to cover owed rent as then they have no financial fall back to use should the tenants leave the rental unit damaged.

You are being sued for owed rent because, well, you owe Decembers rent. Your landlord was smart to serve you before you vacated his rental unit as he knew where you lived (at least until today).

Gail