Landlord Question and Answer Forum

I planned to rent an apartment in Northen Virginia. i saw a post on craigs for sublet and contacted the person who posted that add. went to apartment leasing office and filled out application and they said application fee is 50$. the person who is subleting had planned to move out of the place and want to stay on the lease and i will be on the lease as a roommate. But leasing office did not allow me to get on the lease as the other guy is moving out and they ran background check on my application and took a check for 50$. Later after feu days when i checked my bank account they have deducted 1511$ from my account. they misplaced my check and charged me 1511$ for some other persons rent. When i called them today they said its been wrongly aplied to your account and you can come collect your check which i game them for 50$ as well as 1511$ in 2 days. Is their a way i can sue them or get some thing out of this. Please help.

Anyone can sue for anything, if yo have enough money, patience and perhaps a good attorney. It sounds like they made a HUGE mistake taking money that did not belong to them. Generally, the only time you would have a good established "case" would be if you could prove that their actions were intentional. It does not sound like that in this case. What yo can do, however is have them pay for any costs incurred as a result of this mistake. For instance, if because of the withdrawal of the money, you incurred bank charges.....they would most likely have to pay that.

Posted by Denise S, PA on Tuesday, November 23, 2010