My husband and I were living in PA and our original lease ended August 31. We moved out August 21, and had our landlord sign a letter stating that we were released from our lease obligations effective the 21st (though we paid the whole month), since she wanted to have people come in and do work and we didn’t want to be held responsible if anything happened.
Our landlord told us before we moved out that we owed her a lot of money for damages (mostly a burn on her laminate counter top). We asked her several times before we moved for a copy of the work order so we could see that this was actually the cost, and she never showed us any paperwork. We figured it was for her to show us, so we didn’t worry. Well, we moved out and never heard from her. We are aware that she has 30 days from THE DAY WE MOVE OUT (which effectively terminated the lease) to send us a letter explaining why we are not getting our security deposit back, and detailing any damages and money we may owe her. We never received such letter.
We did not give her the address we currently live at, since we did not close on our home until a few days after we moved, but we did give her my in laws address which is where we were staying until we moved. She did some deceitful things, like calling our moving company and the HR department of my husband’s old company to try to get our new address, since she didn’t believe us! We did give her a legitimate address, just didn’t want to give her the new address in case something happened with closing. My in laws still live there, and she could have reached us there all along (it is only 15 minutes away), and she did not have to go above our heads to try to find our address.
Anyway, today (33 days after) I received a certified letter from the district court in PA suing us. I refused service since I know she did not follow protocol and is past the 30 days. My husband called the post office and wants to accept service, which is fine I don’t care.
My understanding is that after 30 days, she waives her rights to try to collect more than the security deposit. Also, from what I understand is we can sue her for the security deposit. If there were no additional damages, we could sue her for double the security deposit, but then she could counter sue us. Can we really sue her now, and not risk her counter suing, if we just sue for the security deposit?
So what are my rights at this point? What are her rights? Can we sue her for our security deposit and not be counter sued? By waiting more than 30 days, did she waive her right to sue us? By not sending us a letter first, and going directly to court, is she in the wrong?
Thank you so much in advance for ANY help!
I meant July, not August for when we moved out!