Security deposit refund : Lawsuit
I made the deductions from a security deposit recently and got sued.
Reason being cited: failed to itemize deductions by grouping deductions, including wear and tear items, using inflated estimates.
I have the receipts.
what should be my recourse?
I can think of counter suing for more items i found damaged(offense is the best defense strategy), OR
i have some weird online post by my tenant that says they had few long term relatives staying with them - can i use it OR
simply being on court
Location: Hudson county, NJ
Thanks for the help as always.
Most Popular Reply
@Mike Savage @Bill B. and @Richard F. are right that a local attorney is the first move, @Drew Sygit posted the NJ statute links, and @Shawn Mcenteer is right that the dollar amount changes the calculus. All of that is worth sitting with before you do anything else. I want to take the two tactical questions you actually asked, because I think both of your instincts are working against you here.
On counter suing for damage you found later. The problem is not only that it likely fails, it is that it damages the case you already have. Your defense is that your deductions were legitimate and documented at the time. The moment you introduce damages you discovered after you sent the itemization, you have told the judge your original accounting was incomplete, which is the plaintiff's exact argument. You would be corroborating him. Whatever those extra items are worth is almost certainly less than the credibility it costs.
On the online post about relatives staying there. Unauthorized occupants is a lease enforcement issue and the moment to raise it was while it was happening. Introducing it now reads as searching for a justification after the fact, and judges in deposit cases are already primed to watch for that. It also does not attach to any particular deduction. If a specific item of damage is plausibly caused by extra occupancy, then the damage is the argument and the occupancy is just context.
What is worth your energy instead: you are facing two different challenges and they have different defenses. Grouping the deductions is a form problem. Inflated estimates is a substance problem. Some jurisdictions treat a defective itemization as forfeiting the deduction regardless of whether the damage was real, and that is the part that should worry you most, and the part a NJ attorney can answer in one phone call. The inflated estimates piece you can win on paper if what you charged matches what you paid. Bill put that exactly right. Pull every invoice and lay the amount charged next to the amount actually paid, line by line, on a single page. If those two columns match, that charge collapses on its own.
I would also separate out the wear and tear items yourself before the hearing rather than defending the entire list. Conceding two items you privately know are marginal makes the remaining list read as disciplined rather than padded, and it costs you almost nothing.
For counsel, the NJ State Bar runs a lawyer referral service by county, and a Hudson County landlord tenant attorney will have seen this fact pattern many times over. I am not a lawyer and NJ deposit penalties are unforgiving, so please treat none of the above as a substitute for that call.
How much is actually in dispute, and did you do a documented move in walkthrough with photos? The amount decides whether this is worth fighting at all, but the move in documentation is what decides whether you have a defense.