A$$hole landlords: need advice on legal preceedings

[JackstandJohnny]

to all you out there who rent out properties heres the situation.  i'm thoroughly fed up with this;

so, Girlfriend rents apartment in August.  the landlord does not live in Calgary, he lives in Manitoba.  there is not walkthrough inspection done; nor is any such document signed...... ok then. 

fast forward to Nov.  landlord decides they need to move back to Calgary cause he lost his job or something.  so he asks my GF if she is ok with moving out early, and he'll pro rate her rent for the time she's out. (as its already paid)

now legally she's entitled to 3 months to live there. being the nice gal she is, and me being me, she just moves into my place (jury's out on if this was a good thing )  so long and short of it, the old landlords move in on nov. 21st.  to this day she has not recieved the 8 remaining post dated cheques, the damage deposit, or the pro rated rent. 

as an FYI, the appartment was actually left cleaner than before, as the carpets were gross and she had to steam clean them.  the legal bitch of it is, they've no proof of anything bad having happened.  they've EVEN acknowledged this. but again. no moving/movout docs were signed.  basically they've just denied giving the deposit back.

so heres where we stand. she's asked constantly, for the whole deposit back.  buddy said he'd give it to her today: the deposit cheques, the deposit and pro rated rent.  the guy said his 'financial institution' needed to hold the money for ten days..... so he could get it today........  Me being me, i smell BS and called him on it, cause its illegal for a bank to hold money when its requested to be withdrawn.  so i called his BS, and he said he'd have the money and stuff today.  i let it go as per GFs request.

so today he says he's out of town till the 23rd, with no mention of anything.  GF has asked him to mail everything out; he says he can't cause its here locally and he's not.

i've called BS again. we had her cheques cancelled, and are filing a civil suit for the rent/damage deposit, and two months rent for her moving out two months early. 

i'm really fumed at this guy cause he's in the wrong every step of the way.  i'm just venting right now, and looking for some advice/feedback.
guess i wanna know what to do, how to go about the court proceedings, and any tips from people in similar positions. 

ive had a renter the last 3 years. i've never had an issue like this;  i KNOW the damage deposit is to go into a savings account of some sort to collect interest for the very reason to return it upon moveout... this guys a month late.  i know he just spent the damn money.

anyways, please voice options/ideas..

cheers

[FiEND]

that's pretty much it, you will have to take him to court.

have to read here and contact these people.  Residential Tenancy Dispute Resolution Service

it's about all you can do unfortunately.  legally anyway

[specialk]

Alberta has very little in 'renters rights' which sucks.  I'm no lawyer (thank god) but I say start a suit.   Sounds like he has been borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and Johnny's GF is going to be waiting a LONG time.  You can easily put a lean against their property.  May have to wait 20 years for the cash though...

I had an issue with a past landlord who kept forgetting to give back the post dated cheques.  I did have the cheque numbers documented so I did a stop payment on them.  That's when he gave them back... the bugger.

[JackstandJohnny]

thanks for the link Al. she's been in touch, paperworks already been started; she's filing tomorrow.   

found out the guy already has one suit against him for the same thing. didn't know till now.  can you even do a background check on landlords?  should.......  ya Kevin, the post datd cheques were an interesting thing.  you can also flag cheques to see if they've been cashed/bounced, to nail em in court.  he'll give em back eventually too. its just such a pissoff. its hard to not lash out irrationally.  we bought a TV with the said deposit money (or what should have been) cause we knew it'd be coming to us (as the guy said) now its not.
guess i just wanted to rant.  i don't understand why someone would do that, and just straight up lie. 

[JackstandJohnny]

thanks for the replies guys.  just got home and read some of the emails between land lord and my GF.  we asked if he was going to drop off the money and cheques tonight as per his last email a few weeks ago. he said no.   so Nicole emailed him and said he can mail them to us and if they get here before january its ok, but if not, she'll be filing in court.
well the response from the gentleman was about three paragraphs of profanity, accusations, and basically an F you.  he swore at me for getting involved, and he swore at her (email. i know) and threatened nicole for sending him emails from work.  (not sure what he wants to do with that)

so its settled. we'll be suing for the damage deposit, costs of going to court, filing, and two months rent as she was forced from her home in violation of the lease agreement.  She decided to leave because of his threatening use of body language and words. 

i will not tolerate a guy treating my GF or anyone like this. forcing them out, then yelling at them and making idle threats.  she came home crying today because of this bunghole.  luckily i'm a level headed guy so if i ever do meet him i'll refrain from showing him what its like to feel truly threatened.   

let ya know how it goes

[Spinalguy]

First off, CANCEL all cheques if you have not!!!!
How much money are we talking here (damage deposit and )

[JackstandJohnny]

cheques have been cancelled since the beginning of december. as soon as he said 'it'll take 10 business days to withdraw the money from the account'  i called BS cause there is no account where that is possible us bankers know that   so we  had the cheques cancelled. 

the damage deposit and pro rated rent were for 1110$. plus the filing fee. so looking for 1185$ thats it.

it is stupid. i know.  i'm hoping that the filed lawsuit will solve itself with him just paying her. i think he just spent the money when he got it, and needs time to work to make the money

[JackstandJohnny]

Again, by the Act, he had to *by law* put it into a secure interest bearing account....

<shaking head> People who figure they are going to do stuff, like open a business or become a landlord and who are too lacking in whatever it takes to do even basic research ahead of time or even after the fact into what their legal obligations and rights are astound me.

Pat, he had the gall to say 'i can't believe you would use your knowledge of the landlord Tenant to try and screw us out of our damage deposit'.... seeing as i've rented my basement out for 3 years i simply said, 'i've been renting a basement suite for 3 years. i know what rights i have and theirs.  and one thing you conveniently 'forget' to do, is a WALKTHROUGH so this discrepency does not happen.  that fact that you DIDN'T KNOW THAT tells me everything.......

i wanted to ask him if he knew what a deposit was, or if he had a dictionary, as well as wonder why/how he's renting out a property without basic knowledge of the situation.  what a dumbass.  

stupid. hopefully he sends a cheque in the mail.

[hps4evr]

venting is good. its a shame how things like this work. you can go to court. but getting the cash from this person will be a pain. sorry to say. hope the guy folds and gives you the money owing. good luck dude. why do people do this?

[JackstandJohnny]

venting is good. its a shame how things like this work. you can go to court. but getting the cash from this person will be a pain. sorry to say. hope the guy folds and gives you the money owing. good luck dude. why do people do this?

yup. you are right Eric. the kicker was earlier we were willing to negotiate.  we have it documented. we have their 'complaints' regarding the damage deposit, so i asked how much they think is fair so we can 'solve this and go about our christmas holidays' 
to this day they have not given us/her a dollar value of their proposed 'damage'  (and there is none. she lived there 3 months)  we have documentation of asking 'what do you think is fair? please let us know so e can get the remainder'  NO response. why?   

*sigh* 

[Sean778]

I can only offer short-term solutions with long-term consequences, so maybe I'd better clam-up.  Good luck sorting this out buddy, litigation is not in my realm of expertise.  Even if you and Nicole aren't the ones who make this fool pay for his crimes, people like this invariably make enough stupid decisions to nail themselves to the wall.   

[WhiteOut]

I'll talk to you tonight, I assume you have all the details readily available?

[JackstandJohnny]

thanks Gents.  nice to have support.

after a lengthy phone call with the gentleman, one where I laid out (and quoting sections of the landlord tenancy Act) why he is in the wrong, i offered him the option of ponying up the dough, or he can try and argue the legal documents outlining our situation.  today, i may have been reward with a semi victory. he has agreed to pay the deposit back;  however, like with everything else, i shall belive it when i see it; and the funds are deposited into the bank, and cleared.

cheers to all.

[jenn1981]

Good luck Johnny.
I have studied the Landlord Tenant Act a lot over the past few months.  We have had our share of nightmares with out current landlord.
There are many wonderful things they can fine your gf's landlord with through the act, including the lack of the walk through.
I also find it interesting that he sent a long email of profanity, I am pretty sure there is a fine for that too in the act.
Our landlord was nice of enough to try and change how we pay our rent with no notice and when I told him his new way wouldn't work (which was going into a random bank and depositing into a bank account that I didn't even have a name fore) he waited a week to get back to me and then went straight to threatening to send a sherriff to our house to take our belongings for defaulting on our rent.  When the only reason it wasn't paid was because he never got back to me about how he wanted it.  Its hard her in Alberta because so many people just collected property before the boom and started to rent them with no idea what they are doing.
Ours also said that I am a difficult tenant because we had repair people in to fix the things that were supposed to be fixed during our walk through.
I am currently going through the Tentant Act because he has moved offices 5 times in 7 months and changed business names 3 times and I do not beleive I even have a current address for his business or proper name.
As I am finding out most landlords in this city have no idea about their responsibilites and its very difficult to do anything about it.

Good luck to your gf

[JackstandJohnny]

thanks for the replies...  Jenn, thats to bad bout your situation, and so right about the landlords who don't know what they're doing.  this guy bought the condo when times were good, and had bought a house too. now he doesn't make the chedda like he once did, and had to move into his little one bedroom condo.  poor him.  he also doesn't know what he's doing. i talked to him last week, and it was a funny conversation.  he said we were 'taking advantage' of him and his wife by using 'our knowledge of the Act' against them.
i laughed and said 'i'm sorry if you're incapable of carrying out your landlord obligations, but i don't have time to manage YOUR property at the same time.  You shouldh't be renting a property if you have no clue what you're doing, which is quite apparent"
so after an interesting convo he said he'd settle at 850.  i said sure, only cause we're sick of this crap.  he said 'he'd take care of it when he's back form business over christmas'
i guess we'll see.  if she gets a cheque and it clears, its all good.  if not, i've already combed the landlord act, found he's violated most of the agreement.  on a side note he also said 'well i've been in court and it all depends on what mood the judge is in to  hear witnesses etc'  i responded 'been in court before eh?  not your first rodeo? i'm sure the judge will recognize that too. i also bet when i present act 46 (6) and you have no proof of a walkthrough, she won't care about your witnesses'

i'll update in the newyear!!