Settled with the landlord

Some time ago, I posted a few questions wrt my dispute with a former
landlord http://web.wenxuecity.com/BBSView.php?SubID=law&MsgID=69063
and got many good advices.

I finally filed a small claim law suite against the landlord on the basis
that they didn't send to me a detailed list of invoice and receipts for
the repair work that they claimed. This is based on California Department of
Consumer Affairs' Guide to Residential Tenant's and Landlord's Rights and
Responsibilities.

They kept threatening sending collection agents in the beginning and they did
in the end. I was under a lot of pressure. But about one month before the court
date, the landlord started to call me to compromise. They called four times and
lowered their prices three times but I insisted that I do not owe them anything
and that they violated the law. In the end, we settled 3 days before the court. I
didn't pay a single dime and had my credit intact.

Lessons learned from this incident.

- Don't get involved in a dispute in the first place
I sort of won the case but it cost me time and money to research
and launch the law suite. I should've believed what the on-line
apartment ratings told me and not rent there in the beginning.

- Once you are in one and do believe you are in the right, research the case
and find out what could be used as "hard" evidence to prove that they are
violating the law. In this society, one simply cannot afford to be ignorant.
This is critical. My wife had the credit of finding the right info in my case.

- Once you've found it, file the small claim and stick to the end. I didn't
choose to go to court in the end but I basically got what I wanted.

Good luck.

所有跟帖： 

• Good job! Did you get your deposit back too? -Tjhzyrmm- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/08/2007 postreply 03:02:36

• No. I didn't push that far. -6grizzly- ♂ (340 bytes) () 12/08/2007 postreply 09:47:00