Deposit Question - Landlord Forum thread

Deposit Question by Eloise on July 30, 2012 @15:22

So, a previous post got me thinking, I am curious what the legality is.
Last year, we looked at some apartments in AL, filled out an application, they called me and told me we were approved and to send a $300.00 deposit and to come sign the lease. Since we were not in AL at the time, and we needed to be there in person, they had me mail the $300.00 and we'd meet there on a certain date.
Later they called me, and changed up the date to two weeks later. Then they called me and moved the date to actually one week earlier than the original date {can't remember the specifics but it was like something like: meeting on the 7th, moving it to the 21st, then moving it to the 1st}.
What ended up happening was that we were not ready to sign the lease on the 1st, as a matter of fact we were not even in the state, so, they told us we lost the apartment.
However, they kept the $300.00 deposit.
I am curious to know if they were supposed to do this? Should I send them a letter requesting it back? It's just $300.00 but the way the whole thing was handled makes me wonder...

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Re: Deposit Question by Franklin (TN) on July 30, 2012 @15:30	[ Reply ]

Oh hell no, they can't keep that money. You didn't sign anything. You should only give money when a lease is signed. You can do that via email/fax, so there's no excuse for what they did. They probably did this to many different people and pocketed security deposits galore. I would request it back saying you never signed anything and you didn't pull out, they kept moving the time around until they found a time you conveniently couldn't do it.

Re: Deposit Question