Coconut Creek, FL · Member since 2016 · 57 posts · 22 votes
Lol no this is not a riddle. I actually had an applicant that was going through the screening process with the HOA of my community request to withdraw the lease agreement. The applicant did not want to wait any longer for an approval for the HOA and decided they wanted to move on. After informing the applicant several times that they will lose their deposit they kept trying to tell me that I owed them their deposit. The very next day they sent me a request to withdraw their withdrawal. I really do not want this person in my home right now. Am I allowed to reject this last request, legally? I already listed my home for rent again and am receiving inquiries for rent now. I have all withdrawal request in writing.
To quote you..."Legally could he keep the money...probably". Legally, he can keep the money. Period. Morally, if you sign a contract as a tenant and you seek to back out of the contract after tying up a property for 27 days, should you get your money back?
I cannot share the method on how to avoid the frivolous suit. I can tell you it is quite legal and quite ingenious. Not my idea. Picked it up at the local REIA.
An ingenious way to fight off law suits and you cannot share the method. So you came on BP to tell more experienced people they are wrong and keep all your good ideas to secret.
Let me guess, just don't answer your door when the mailman comes with ceritifed mail?
"I cannot share the method on how to avoid the frivolous suit. I can tell you it is quite legal and quite ingenious."
Anybody who has been in business long enough knows: its not IF you will ever be in a lawsuit, it is just a question of WHEN. I am just trying to help the OP from keeping this instance from being his first when. Maybe if you have such a great secret that could help Andrew and the rest of the community you should consider sharing.
Your post is the very first one I have read where a person actually said they did not want to share specific knowledge with the community... I think you are missing the entire point of this community.
Andrew Edwards Law may be one thing but it is actions like this that cause legislation to be created against predatory landlords. I try to put myself in the shoes of my tenant and they have no guarantee they will be approved at end of 30 days. This is exactly why I have gone away from
condos where I once used to invest in them all the time. 30 days to wait for an approval is a long time and a judge may still rule against you and you may win eventually but what are your legal costs? Would you want to have to wait 30 days for an HOA approval? Given that many condos do deny rental applications because of lending guidelines would you even feel guilty that the renter had their deposit tied up for 30 days and did not get approved? When I read your post I imagine somebody with dollar signs in their eyes, not somebody I would want to give advice to. Maybe it is being taken the wrong way, maybe you are under high stress because you have payments with no income but I would read carefully what you are writing on here before posting. I made the same mistake once and it was taken out of context and I got litup.
To piggy back on what @Joe Splitrock and @Arlen Chou said, the key here is risk mitigation and understanding what is at stake. Whether you are afraid of a lawsuit is irrelevant. For me, the real question here is whether @Account Closed should risk a lawsuit over $800 when the downside is far greater (e.g. having to pay for his attorney, risk of having to pay more than $800 in damages, paying for all the filing costs, etc.).
Note that if Andrew's scenario happened in PA, I would disagree with you that he had a clear legal right to the $800. As I explained before, what the applicant engaged in is often called anticipatory breach. The applicant quickly made an effort to rescind the anticipatory breach. In those cases, the law may require Andrew to accept such an effort. Failing to accept such an effort means that Andrew is now the breaching party.
Maybe you can legally do this, but it is just bad business. Would you rather take the money in exchange for having someone feel that you took advantage of them, and they them telling several others about that?
How would you feel if the roles were reversed? Our reputations are so very important to our success.
And, it's just the wrong thing to do, (in my humble opinion.) It's about being a good person, and being part of what makes a good community. Leave that person with a good feeling about you, and about landlords in general. That nice gesture will be returned in the future.
As it has been presented @Account Closed I think the landlords application terms were such he has right to retain the holding deposit, and I would have done the same. I wish more landlords would actually know their rights and operate as a business.
Deanna, I take exception to your last paragraph. I fully know my rights and I operate as a business. Even my receipt that I give for "hold deposits" states "This amount is non-refundable and must be used toward a lease signing on or before (enter date here)" There are times when being right is not the same as being effective and this is one of those times. Keeping a "hold deposit" won't win anyone over and is the perfect way to spread around not so "goodwill" regardless of what the law says.