Walking into court Monday morning with California Civil Code Section 1950.5 in hand, my wife and I thought we had a really good chance to see our Security Deposit once again from our previous Land-”Lord”.
After a 30 minute Mediation Meeting, the landlord offered a ridiculous amount to drop the case; we waited another 2 hours for our day in court.
The judge listened to our view that we were entitled to the return of Security Deposit from the landlord as he was the party we gave the money to and according to the Code that was one of two options that released the Landlord from liability. The other being that he turns over the Deposit to his successor in interest to the property (the Bank) and notifies us of this, which was never done either.
The Landlords defense was that we hadn’t vacated the premises yet – that we hadn’t had to pay rent since the Foreclosure Sale – and that the successor of interested had offered Cash for Keys so we weren’t entitled to our Deposit.
We thought all of these defenses were not pertinent to the case as our negotiations with the bank had nothing to do with what he was required to do under the law.
Will the Judge dismissed the case without prejudice, wanting to have us subpoena the Bank and name them as Co-Defendants and set a new Trail Date of August 10th.
So it’s back to court in August. We’ll be moved off our lovely 10 acres on July 1st and into our new rental a few miles away. The new place will cost us an additional $600.00 per month more then here but at least we have a place to go to now.
Peace
Tim & Trisha & Dorothy