Small claims court or civil complaint?

C

Cecil n

New member
Laws are different according to your jurisdiction. Here in AR I would suggest small claims court, bring all paperwork, and let a judge decide. There is a $5000.00 limit. No attorney is needed, but if you retain one, the case moves from small claims to civil. Filing fee is $65.00, plus subpoena service. You can, and usually will get, filing fees and any other out of pocket expenses if you win your case. Loss of wages due to time spent in court is usually not awarded. Much will depend on the specific purpose of the security deposit, whether it was for cleaning, damage to the property, or securing rent payment.
 
My husband and I cosigned on an apartment with one of his children. Mid through the lease we gave up responsibility of paying rent and cleaning the apartment when the lease was up. We have this in a written letter with the landlord.

In the lease it states a thirty day notice needs to be given at the beginning of the month with the rent for moveout. His kid failed to do so, and got stuck with another months rent. The kid agreed to pay another months rent but wrote a bad check. In the end the landlord took our security deposit in place of of the rent that was due.

We've talked to an attorney and they say we don't have a small claims case because # 1) we aren't the landlords, #2) the bad check wasn't written to us.

Should we let this go or continue to look for ways to get our money back?? We have a copy of the letter we wrote and a written bad check. We also had to spend two hours cleaning up after his kid... they left the state knowing they wrote the bad check n failed to properly clean the apartment. Now they are back in the state and aren't talking to us. We've sent them a bill of the rent that was owed and the amount a money the landlord would charge to clean it if we hadn't.

So my question is is there away we can file to get our money back?

We are pretty frustrated because his kid has been able to get away with just about anything and is still rude to us. Or should we just kiss our losses goodbye and just move on. All advice would be appreciated.

P.S. we are willing to spend up to the amount they owe us if we have to go to court for this..
 
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