Landlord kept deposit, charged for items such as housekeeping and bent rails in refrigerator. legaladvice

Here goes. I moved out of an apartment in Phoenix on November 08 of this year. On the 8th, we were at the end of moving the last boxes and cleaning. We asked the manager to go a walkthrough with us prior to handing over the keys back. The manager didn’t want to, so we told her that we had a right to be there at the walkthrough and asked when it will happen. She, the manager, hesitated but sent the maintenance guy to do it. We went through, he told us he would charge us for items like cabinet door replacement, wall needed to be resurfaced and painted, light bulbs and drip pans on the stove. So we knew what we expected. It was around 5:45 pm in the evening and the manager demanded the keys by 6 pm or else she would charge us for another day. A little backstory, the manager didn’t like me as she try to evict me prior and violating the lease for not notifying we have pets and putting a deposit down and pay pet rent; this is true for dogs and cats, but birds are not part of the pet part of the lease. Our complaint went all the way to corporate and I’m assuming she got into some kind of trouble from her boss. So, this ticked me off and just complied with here. We changed the light bulbs that were burnt out and replaced the drip pans.

Fast forward to last week, I finally get a letter from the apartment complex assuming I was going to get at least part of my deposit back. My $400 deposit was held and now owe $365. I get a call on a Friday evening and it was my old manager demanding payment right away as I tried to question certain charges and dispute them, but she didn’t want to hear it and told me that I have 30 days to settle the account.

Since I was a renter in Arizona, does Arizona tenant rights allow me to demand my full deposit back? As the manager didn’t mail me my deposit/items owed with in 14 business days? The envelope was post marked on December 11, 2017. The letter demands payment be made in 30 days by January 11, 2018 before being sent to collections.

tl;dr moved from apartment complex, manager used entire security deposit and charged more, did manager violate the 14 day rule by mailing deposit/itemized lists owe after the 14 day in Arizona.

Submitted December 27, 2017 at 09:50AM by tazhii http://ift.tt/2BXop5h legaladvice