My old land lord is trying to sue me for some cash.
I need some advice on this as a few people have told me just to go to court and they most likely won't make me pay anything. I'm sure it is different in each state, but please advise the best you can.
What happen...
We rented a house about 18 months ago. Rent was $1,300 per month. I just started building my credit then (never had a need for it) so he was reluctant to rent to us. I offered him 6 months rent in advance, on the 1 year lease. That's $7,800 plus 1 months rent deposit so I cut him a check for $9,100.
The problems..
Ok, so 2 weeks go by and we move in. There's some shit we didn't notice about the house, its in poor condition. But we thought, oh well we paid for it so we better live here. Well after about a month our garbage disposal burns out. We call him up to come have it fixed, a week go by and he still hasn't come to fix it. In the mean time its gotten pretty nasty in the sink, when we would use the dish waster it would back up and flood the sink with water with parts of food and other crap in there.
He did end up coming 2 weeks later (was pretty bad by then) and got it fixed for us.
Another few weeks go past. Well I noticed water damage in one of the bed rooms on the ceiling. Didn't really think much of it until it started raining. It fucking looked through and onto a rack of stereo shit that I had in the bed room. We call him up and let him know, he tells us that the stereo is our responsibility and that he will send someone out. No one ever comes. It just kept leaking.
Another 2 weeks go by, the heater stops working. We say fuck this.
We call the landlord up and tell him we are leaving. We give him our 30 days notice and leave. This was about 2 1/2 months into our lease.
He doesn't repay any of the advance rent, no deposit back.
Ok.. fast forward to about 2 weeks ago. I get a call from the fucking jackass saying he wants money for the rest of our lease.
He said the house sat empty because we were still supposed to be renting it and blah blah
I told him we put in our days, he knew we were gone. Eventually he tells me that he remodeled and fixed the whole house. He was trying to say some shit that he offered to do that for us before we left.
He is saying that he is going to take me to court if I don't pay the rest of the rent. He says I owe him a little over $6,000.
The problem is that we didn't document any of the problems we had, it will basically be our word against his.
He says if he takes it to court he will charge us for lawyer fee's, his gas for driving to the house, what it cost him to advertise the house for rent in the paper and for what time he spent going and showing the house. (about $10,000 he says)
A couple people told me to go to court and we most likely won't have to pay anything if we tell our story.
Does anyone think we stand a chance in court? Or should we just settle out of court for 4-5g's less?
Sorry for the long post, just need some advice
