My husand and I signed a lease with William "Bill" Alvarez and Carolyn Alvarez for a house in the Burnt Store Meadows development in Punta Gorda, Florida. We sent him a deposit for the house in July. We moved down to Florida from Massachusetts in August and signed the lease with them for the period of August 1-July 31.
The lease stated that rent was due on the 1st of each month or a 5% late charge would be applied. However, when my husband spoke to Bill, he was told not to worry about it. He understood finding a job in this economy was tough and for us to pay the regular $1300.00 each month when we could.
The lease also stated that no improvements could be done without written consent from the landlord. However, each time my husband spoke to Bill, he would blow that off and tell us to go ahead, fix the locks on the doors that wouldn't work, replace the ceiling fans that were so broken and off balance that they were ready for come out of the ceiling. To go ahead and replace the dirty and stained carpet in our asthmetic daughter's bedroom with the laminate we found that would match exactly, the laminate flooring already in the master bedroom. Go ahead and fix the leaking faucets. Don't worry about written consent We were his best tenants. He promised every month that he would put in a pool but yet we still had no pool.
We found two other tenants for two of his other properties for him. But earning the kind of money needed to rent his homes is not easy in Florida. For months, we had been telling him, trying to be good tenants, that we could no longer afford the property and would be looking for another place to live. He always brushed aside our concerns by saying we would sit down and talk and work out a new lease (since ours had by now expired) with a lower amount. He never did. He never called my husband back and finally in desperation, I found another house in the same development for $300.00 cheaper. My husband texted Bill (the only way to be sure he would get the information since he was rarely home and bad at returning calls.) telling him that we were moving on May 1st. Bill immediately called my husband, saying that we still owed him rent. My husband first offered to let Bill keep the security deposit as the rent for April but Bill said no. We had no problem with that and paid the rent for April, though it was late. We told Bill that we would have the premises professionally cleaned on the 2nd of May. He said that was fine and that he would hand over our security deposit after the walk-through. My husband is an honorable man and took Bill at his word. On the 1st of May we moved out. On the 2nd itwas cleaned. Later that afternoon Bill did the walk-through with my husband and even had a prospective tenant there to view the home. He loved all the improvements we had made but had forgotten the check. Would we mind if he had Carolyn drop it off later? My husband said no that it would not be a problem. We never did get the check. Bill took to avoiding my husbands calls. Eventually his wife Carolyn took over his phone and said that if it were up to her, we wouldn't get our deposit back at all but Bill had promised us it back and that we would have to wait until they received the deposit from the new tenant.
Finally, on June 3rd we sent Bill and Carolyn a certified letter stating that, in accordence with Florida statutes, we were sending them this certified letter formally requesting out security deposit back. That it had been over the 30 days since we had vacated the property and had not received a certified letter from them stating they were keeping the deposit or why, therefore, they had forfeited the right to keep the deposit.
We also formally requested the bank statements showing from the date they received our deposit that the money had been kept in an escrow account in accordence with Florida Statute, the entire time. The way Carolyn had said that about the other tenant's deposit had me wondering if they were not complying with Florida law.
We also pointed out that since our lease expired on July 31 and was not specified to be an automatic renewal lease, we moved to a month to month basis according to Florida law. We therefore gave them proper notice (15 days) as opposed to the normal 30 days notice had the old lease been renewed. We gave them 72 hours to respondand in accordence with Florida law.
Their response was to send us a letter late, stating that we had violated the lease by paying late and that we were not entitled to our money back because we did not give them 30 days notice as specified in the old lease (completely disregarding the fact that the old lease was expired and thinking that they are above Florida law and can make up their own rules.) Completely ignoring our formal request for the proof that the security was in an escrow account. Which leads me to believe that they have done this many times over and will continue to do so until someone stops them.
Unfortunately, they know that we cannot afford an attorney to look into this matter and nailing them on what I'm sure are several violations of Florida Landlord and Tenant Statutes and will likely continue to cheat people out of thei security deposits.
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