Being sued by former tenant

[jennmac]

I rented my home to a couple in March 2008 for a 1 year lease term while I moved to Florida. I moved back to Michigan in June because my husband was transferred back, my tenants called to meet us face to face. We met with them Mid-June they asked what our intentions with the house were, I advised we were moving back in when the lease expired the home was not for sale. She offered to move out early and let us move back in. I thanked her and told her I was not asking her to move early. I called the next day to apologize and restate I was not asking her to leave. Mid-July we get a call saying the tenants are moving out July 31st 2008, we agree verbally, nothing in writing. The garage door was left open and the house unlocked we entered the home on July 31st at approx. 11:35pm because we were concerned about it being left open. We attempted to contact the tenants at 9:30 but never rcv'd a response from them. The house was filthy but no damage was done. We decided to keep a cleaning fee from the sec. deposit. They gave us a sec dep of $3300. We returned $2500, They did not change the water filter in the fridge which was $50, one water bill of $70, another of $172 and there are still 2 weeks that have not been billed yet. There was also a pet deposit owed to us in the amount of $250 due by the first day they moved in which we did not get so that was deducted. So that leaves about $258 to clean the home(when I moved in I paid $400 to have the home cleaned) They did not pull the weeds in the yard, the left the smoke detectors without batteries and left pizza in the oven along with a disaster in the fridge. They say I owe them $375 and are sueing for $1100 plus attorney fees and court costs. They have given 7 days to pay the $375 or it goes to court, her dad and brother are the lawyers and it's in a county they work in.(conflict of interest?) What should I do? The letter from the lawyer says we pushed them to get out which is untrue, it also states they were not allowed time to come back to clean the home, I came back in the home at 11:35pm the evening the lease was to end (July 31) The rental agreement was in Michigan. Please give your best advice.

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

You have several options to argue this in court.

Your tenants gave you 15 days notice they were leaving. What does the year lease state in terms of notifying you when they plan on vacating? Many require at least a 30 day notice for such. Failure to do so will often require another months rent (which is likely greater than the 375 they claim you owe).

Your tenants are claiming that you pushed them to get them out. Do they have any documentation of such "pushing", i.e., any written documentation you provided them such as a "Notice to Vacate" or an eviction notice? No; because no such documentation exists. Your tenants themselves made the decision to break the lease (although you verbally agreed with this decision).

Hopefully you have documentation of the owed water bills (which equal $240 themselves) and such bills would have the dates listed that would show they were living in the unit at the time.

Hopefully you also took pictures of the damages when you came in to clean the unit; if so, the pictures may have both the date (July 31st) and the time (11:35 pm) listed, an indication that they could not return the place back to its original state in 25 minutes.

Finally, you need to decide if hassling over $375 is worth going to court. If it is, then I'd suggest you countersue for a much larger amount of damages.

They're just hot under the collar in regards to this $375 taken out of their security deposit. They may file or they may drop the case (especially if they realize you have documentation about things like the water bills).

Gail