My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: NJ
A bit of backstory here. I moved out of a house I rented for 3 years about 2 weeks ago. My landlord is now refusing to release any of my security deposit to me due to damages and lost rent. The damages I can live with; some of them are valid, and it's not worth it to me to chase down the ones that aren't since they're mostly minor. However, a majority of the deposit is being withheld because they needed time to perform the repairs, and they are charging me for a month of rent since they weren't able to rent the place out immediately after I left. They also claim that I didn't let them show the place in the month before my lease ended, which isn't true. They called once to see if they could bring someone around in half an hour, which did not work for me. I let them know that any other day was fine, and as long as they gave me fair warning, any time would work. That was the only time they ever asked. The people even showed up anyway that day to take a look, and I showed them around myself.
Some more backstory, it's a four bedroom, three bathroom house. One of the bathrooms has been out of service for over a year due to a burst pipe during last years "polar vortex". The bathroom is on an exterior wall and is not connected to the heating system of the house. I shut off the water to the bathroom and let them know immediately, and they didn't get back to me for a month because they were out of the country. When they finally did look at it, the decision was made that the repairs would take a while to complete and would be disruptive to living in the house, so they decided to wait until after I moved out. I was ok with this since there were other bathrooms, so I decided to live with this decision. This is important, because they already knew that they needed to make repairs to the bathroom (which were not my responsibility).
I understand where, they are coming from, but I don't see any legal precedent for this, especially since they already knew about the repairs that were necessary to the bathroom. I'm totally willing to accept deductions from the deposit for damages that are my responsibility, but they are not supplying me with an itemized list. They just want to keep the entire deposit and "call it even". What legal legs do I have to stand on here? What course of action would be best?
A bit of backstory here. I moved out of a house I rented for 3 years about 2 weeks ago. My landlord is now refusing to release any of my security deposit to me due to damages and lost rent. The damages I can live with; some of them are valid, and it's not worth it to me to chase down the ones that aren't since they're mostly minor. However, a majority of the deposit is being withheld because they needed time to perform the repairs, and they are charging me for a month of rent since they weren't able to rent the place out immediately after I left. They also claim that I didn't let them show the place in the month before my lease ended, which isn't true. They called once to see if they could bring someone around in half an hour, which did not work for me. I let them know that any other day was fine, and as long as they gave me fair warning, any time would work. That was the only time they ever asked. The people even showed up anyway that day to take a look, and I showed them around myself.
Some more backstory, it's a four bedroom, three bathroom house. One of the bathrooms has been out of service for over a year due to a burst pipe during last years "polar vortex". The bathroom is on an exterior wall and is not connected to the heating system of the house. I shut off the water to the bathroom and let them know immediately, and they didn't get back to me for a month because they were out of the country. When they finally did look at it, the decision was made that the repairs would take a while to complete and would be disruptive to living in the house, so they decided to wait until after I moved out. I was ok with this since there were other bathrooms, so I decided to live with this decision. This is important, because they already knew that they needed to make repairs to the bathroom (which were not my responsibility).
I understand where, they are coming from, but I don't see any legal precedent for this, especially since they already knew about the repairs that were necessary to the bathroom. I'm totally willing to accept deductions from the deposit for damages that are my responsibility, but they are not supplying me with an itemized list. They just want to keep the entire deposit and "call it even". What legal legs do I have to stand on here? What course of action would be best?
Security Deposits: Landlord Withholding Entire Security Deposit
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