Someone Help!!! Taking Landlord to small claims court

[amanda381986]

I rented a small carriage house (garage converted to a living space) in Woodmere NY and after 7 months had to move. I had no lease but found out the apartment was not legal and now the landlord has started walking into the apartment unannounced and unwelcomed, without knocking or calling first. Also she had started a major issue about parking the cars on the the property. After my car ended up being hit (which I did not call the police as she is an elderly woman who has many health problems and I felt bad for her) my husband and I decided to move out before it became a bigger issue. I gave her more then a months notice, when it came time to get the secruity deposit back she refused to give us the money, so we stopped removing items from the house and started moving things back in, (planning on living out the security if she was not going to refund it). When we got back to the house to finish everything up one morning she had changed the locks on us with our personal property and 2 cats inside. We waited more then 7 hours for her to get back. Finally she shows up and fights for more then 2 hours about giving the money back, and finally decided she was going to only give a partial amount back, even though there was no damage done in the house (we ended up fixing everything that was broken when we moved in, so the place was in better condition when we left then when we moved in). About a week has passed and at this time, when we find out that she(our previous landlord) has called my husbands employer and attempted to have him fired! He works in the financial services industry and she called his firm and threatened the firm to call FINRA. At this point I want to take her to small claims court, but am not sure if I can or should use all of this to back my case or what I can sue her for. We incurred expenses of over $2,700.00 dollars from everything involved with this. Someone please give me some insight into what to do!!!!

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

In the absence of a written lease, a tenant is considered to have a "tenancy at will" or a "month to month" lease. This means that the lease begins on the first day of each month and ends on the last day.

As such, this type of lease can typically be terminated with a one month written notice in New York State. Sounds like you covered your bases on that.

Unlike most other states, New York does not specify a certain time period when the security deposit (or notification of the status of such) must be returned to the tenant; it only specifies this should be returned within a "reasonable" amount of time. Courts have typically determined this to be between 30 and 60 days.

In your case your landlord was not required to provide you with the security deposit upon moveout. Unfortunately if you started moving your items back into the rental unit, you may have "restarted" the clock on yet another month of living there.

Please explain where the $2700 fee comes into play. Is that the amount in the security deposit that she did not return?

Gail

 

[amanda381986]

There were the moving costs ($30 a day x 3 days = $120)
Plus I missed 2 days of work ($12 per hour x 8 hours x 2 days = $194)
The place was in better condition then when we moved in and she only gave a partial refund of the security, for reasons she couldnt explain ($1250 (inital deposit) - $1000 (what she refunded) = $250)
My husband missed more then 4 days of work ((roughy) $1000)
I had no access to my cats and the a/c wasn't on so they both got sick ($300 and change in vet bills)
She is also holding mail that is ours ( there are 2 seperate mailboxes for the property but the mailman screws up ALOT and puts our mail in hers) - 2 utility bills that are now both late ($4.50 late charge for cable and $35 for power)
The damage to my car from her hitting it ($800 (roughly)
I found out the apartment was illegal when the census bureau came around to do their polls and saw the seperate house and started asking questions, when I stated that I rented the property from the home owner they made a comment about not having it listed as a legal rental in the states system and they would have to look into it. And after all of this happened I found out that the "homeowner" (my landlady) was not actually the homeowner, she tried selling the house in 2003 for a little over $500k and transfered it to another relative when it didnt sell. When I contacted the relative that was the owner they stated that the building was a legal dwelling but they never registered it to rent it out, it was only legal for family and personal use, not an income property. We found out that the landlady, instead of holding our security in a seperate account she used the money to buy tickets for her and her boyfriend to go to Egypt, then tries stating that she doesnt have the security to give back to us, shes broke, and many other excuses. I tried moving out the previous month as well but again the same story with the security, so I paid her biweekly for the past month and even tried helping her rent it out, holding open houses, posting it on craigslist and so on. Im just fed up and now hoping nothing happens to my husbands job after her little episode calling his job.

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

You can attempt to sue for whatever you wish (New York State allows lawsuits of up to $5000 to be heard in Small Claims) but a court is typically not going to reimburse you for time off from work and sick cats.

It would appear that your real issue is getting all of your security deposit back and being covered for the damages to your car (hopefully you took pictures and have documentation that she caused this).

All the rest of the stuff including the fact that a census bureau commented that the place was illegal and that the landlady and her boyfriend took a trip to Egypt is typically going to mean little in a court and may muddy the waters and confuse the judge even more. Try to remain focused on what are the important issues as you prepare for the court hearing.

Gail

 

[amanda381986]

thank you fro your help!