My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: Texas
Here's the background:
I moved out of my last apartment about a month ago. During my stay there, I had multiple leaks of my A/C cooling system requiring maintenance to come out multiple times, pull up the carpet, dry the padding, fix the leak, and then replace the carpet.
About 1 week prior to my move-out, I noticed that there were some areas of mold beginning to grow on the carpet, due to repeated soakings by the A/C system leak. I called the apt manager and notified them, they said they expected to replace the carpet anyways so it's no big deal. Unfortunately I never got anything in writing.
Fast forward 1 month -- the apartment is under new ownership/management, and I get a bill stating that they are charging me almost $3000 for carpet damage from mold. They have already turned it over to a debt collection agency even though I was only notified about it 3-4 days prior to collections agency taking over.
I wrote to the debt collection agency asking for clarification on the debt, and they just gave me a simple statement that said "carpet damage due to mold -- $3000" and that was it.
So now I need to decide what to do.
I looked up the laws in Texas and discovered that wage garnishment is not allowed except under specific circumstances, and that apartment debt/damage is not one of them. So I'm confident that if they did try to get a judgment against me in court, that they wouldnt be able to garnish wages. That being said, they could still get a judgment against me. I haven't seen anything listed on my credit report yet, but I'm assuming that it's a matter of time before that is affected as well.
I feel powerless to fight this debt because all I have are phone calls with no written correspondence. I can prove that maintenance made multiple visits to my apartment for water leaks from the a/c unit, but that's all I can prove with a paper trail. The rest of it is all based on conversation with the old apartment manager who has left the company and with whom I have no way to establish contact.
Here are my questions;
1. If I decide to pay off this nonsense to make it go away, I want to make sure that I only have to pay 1 agency and not multiple parties. I read a story in the newspaper about a guy who paid off a debt collector only to find out that he still had to pay the original party because the debt was never formally transferred from the original creditor to the debt collector. So the first thing I'm going to do before I even consider paying this debt is to demand an official letter stating that ONLY the debt collection agency holds the debt and therefore the apartment complex itself has released me from it so they cant double dip me. How likely are they to comply with providing me a letter like this?
2. I'm assuming that the debt collection agency paid pennies on the dollar to acquire the debt, so that should help me negotiate a little bit, especially since they dont have wage garnishment power against me even if they get a judgment. How likely would a debt collection agency be likely to file suit for a $3000 debt? I'm assuming court costs by itself would be a lot more than $3000
3. I'm assuming that there's no way the debt collection agency will see my side of the story, even if I did have written correspondence and a paper trail proving the carpet mold was caused by the A/C system and was not my fault. Is my only recourse for fighting this to go to court?
4. As a condition of paying this BS debt, can I make a condition that they remove any bad credit ratings on my report? I'm worried that even if I pay this debt, that they will refuse to take it off my credit report and I will be stuck with it on there.
5. Has anybody ever just ignored the debt collector for a debt of this amount and they eventually just write it off? Maybe $3000 is still worth them going to court over, but what if the debt was $100 instead of $3000? Do debt collectors still go to court over small debts like that? Surely there must be a cutoff where they decide it is not worth it.
6. The downside of fighting this out is that I'm assuming that the debt collection agency is charging interest for every day that I delay payment, is this correct? How much fees/interest are they allowed to charge? What is to stop them from charging 100% interest every day forever?
Here's the background:
I moved out of my last apartment about a month ago. During my stay there, I had multiple leaks of my A/C cooling system requiring maintenance to come out multiple times, pull up the carpet, dry the padding, fix the leak, and then replace the carpet.
About 1 week prior to my move-out, I noticed that there were some areas of mold beginning to grow on the carpet, due to repeated soakings by the A/C system leak. I called the apt manager and notified them, they said they expected to replace the carpet anyways so it's no big deal. Unfortunately I never got anything in writing.
Fast forward 1 month -- the apartment is under new ownership/management, and I get a bill stating that they are charging me almost $3000 for carpet damage from mold. They have already turned it over to a debt collection agency even though I was only notified about it 3-4 days prior to collections agency taking over.
I wrote to the debt collection agency asking for clarification on the debt, and they just gave me a simple statement that said "carpet damage due to mold -- $3000" and that was it.
So now I need to decide what to do.
I looked up the laws in Texas and discovered that wage garnishment is not allowed except under specific circumstances, and that apartment debt/damage is not one of them. So I'm confident that if they did try to get a judgment against me in court, that they wouldnt be able to garnish wages. That being said, they could still get a judgment against me. I haven't seen anything listed on my credit report yet, but I'm assuming that it's a matter of time before that is affected as well.
I feel powerless to fight this debt because all I have are phone calls with no written correspondence. I can prove that maintenance made multiple visits to my apartment for water leaks from the a/c unit, but that's all I can prove with a paper trail. The rest of it is all based on conversation with the old apartment manager who has left the company and with whom I have no way to establish contact.
Here are my questions;
1. If I decide to pay off this nonsense to make it go away, I want to make sure that I only have to pay 1 agency and not multiple parties. I read a story in the newspaper about a guy who paid off a debt collector only to find out that he still had to pay the original party because the debt was never formally transferred from the original creditor to the debt collector. So the first thing I'm going to do before I even consider paying this debt is to demand an official letter stating that ONLY the debt collection agency holds the debt and therefore the apartment complex itself has released me from it so they cant double dip me. How likely are they to comply with providing me a letter like this?
2. I'm assuming that the debt collection agency paid pennies on the dollar to acquire the debt, so that should help me negotiate a little bit, especially since they dont have wage garnishment power against me even if they get a judgment. How likely would a debt collection agency be likely to file suit for a $3000 debt? I'm assuming court costs by itself would be a lot more than $3000
3. I'm assuming that there's no way the debt collection agency will see my side of the story, even if I did have written correspondence and a paper trail proving the carpet mold was caused by the A/C system and was not my fault. Is my only recourse for fighting this to go to court?
4. As a condition of paying this BS debt, can I make a condition that they remove any bad credit ratings on my report? I'm worried that even if I pay this debt, that they will refuse to take it off my credit report and I will be stuck with it on there.
5. Has anybody ever just ignored the debt collector for a debt of this amount and they eventually just write it off? Maybe $3000 is still worth them going to court over, but what if the debt was $100 instead of $3000? Do debt collectors still go to court over small debts like that? Surely there must be a cutoff where they decide it is not worth it.
6. The downside of fighting this out is that I'm assuming that the debt collection agency is charging interest for every day that I delay payment, is this correct? How much fees/interest are they allowed to charge? What is to stop them from charging 100% interest every day forever?
Disputing Debts: Apartment Debt That Was Trumped Up with Errors
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