Landlord Question and Answer Forum

I received a 'Notice to Quit' while on vacation which I'm coming to find out isn't quite legal, but I don't know what I should really do about it. The situation is that a previous tenant in the apartment above mine (top floor of the house is one living unit and I rent the basement as a completely seperate unit) had a leaking water pipe for about 2 years, which has now caused enough damage to warrant remodeling. I was evicted for having a 'large' dog rather than the one on my lease, which is the same dog but no longer a puppy, and still weighs under 55 pounds which is what I estimated her full grown size to be. My findings on the legality turned up this - "By law, a tenant must be notified of a violation and provided a specified period of time to cure or rectify the violation." So what should I do? I'm allergic to mold, and was going to break my lease due to it anyway, but she's saying as part of the eviction my deposit is forfiet. Is a lawyer my next step?

If you broke your lease anyway, you would forfeit your deposit unless you could demonstrate that the presence of mold rendered the property uninhabitable.

Posted by Nancy H, NY on Monday, November 16, 2009

My apologies, I didn't explain very well because of the character limit. I had already talked with my landlord about terminating the lease early because of the mold problem, so at that point it was a mutual thing. I also bought and personally installed carpet in the unit out of pocket, so the deposit in that case was supposed to be returned in full. All that's really changed is that I was given an eviction letter where rather than us terminating the lease and me getting my deposit back for the work I did - I'm now being evicted without a notice of violation (first step) and she's trying to keep the deposit. Sorry about that, I should have divided it into two posts. I'm just curious if anyone would know off hand whether a lawyer is the next step since I've spoken with her about it all already.

Posted by Iwould R, WY on Tuesday, November 17, 2009