Small Claims Court

[Dave Gray]

Anyone have any experience with this?

I have a landlord that lived out of state, In Illinois.  She sent me a $700 refund check for overpaid rent when I moved out and bought a home.  But in the move, I never saw the check.  It's been 2 years, that check is dead and the account is closed.

But I still have $700 in my "account" with her.  She is ghosting, and I believe it's on purpose.  I have two phone numbers and an email address all being ignored for months.

I really have no choice but to sue for the money.  I believe that FL is the venue, but the FL website is hard to understand and I don't really know how to get started.

[Brian Fein]

if only you knew of an attorney that could help...?

[Phishfan]

Wow. This is an interesting scenario. Are you saying you never received the check or that you received it and misplaced it? I

[masterfins]

In my experience winning a judgement is easy, trying to collect on it is a whole other matter.  My suggestion is forget about it.

[Dave Gray]

Wow. This is an interesting scenario. Are you saying you never received the check or that you received it and misplaced it? I

I received the check, but I was moving.  So, about 2 months ago, when I was cleaning my house, I found a pile of mail that included a lot of the move-in paperwork.  In it was a plain envelope that had a check that was 2 years old -- it wasn't hand-written...it was through a company check-service.  I tried to cash it, but the account was closed.

I reached out to the landlady to get it reissued, but she has ghosted.

[Phishfan]

If you pursue this please keep us posted. I wouldn't expect you have a valid claim. Those types of checks usually stipulate a date on them, but I don't know if that is enforceable. Also, she sent a check already.  Does the company listed even exist as the same entity anymore? I know SC doesn't practice in this area but he is our best resource right now.

[Dave Gray]

I would think I have a claim based on the statute of limitations, which has not passed.

[masterfins]

I'm not sure about Florida, but most States also have an Unclaimed Property division through their Secretary of State.  You may want to check and see if the issuer of the check turned the money over to the State when the check went uncashed.  In many States, by law, businesses are required to turn over any unclaimed funds to the State, and the State then keeps the money until someone comes forward to claim the money.  If it was a small business they probably didn't turn it over, as many small businesses don't know of the law, or don't bother following it.  I have a small amount out there that I have to claim for an insurance refund, but haven't had the time to get the form notarized to submit the claim.

[Dave Gray]

Yes, I have used the unclaimed property website (and gotten money from it), but it's not on there.  This is also an individual, not a business.

Because it's over state-lines, she would've had to report it in Florida and there's just no way she's doing that.

[Phishfan]

I'm no lawyer but I don't know if statute of limitations applies. She supplied the check that you failed to cash for two years. It isn't their responsibility to keep an account open forever.

I expect you have a claim but it would need to be under unclaimed property and the business would still need to be intact. If she folded one business and is under a new legal business would that transfer?

[SCFinfan]

Yikes what a problem.

The real issue stems from the fact that it’s overpaid rent. If it were an unreturned security deposit, you definitely have some statutory support in Florida, but with overpaid rent, the statutes that I’ve read don’t really deal with that (and in SC, there aren’t any statutes that really help you with that).

I would deal with it in 2 ways:

1. The more complicated way, and more expensive: most counties in the US have a system called “GIS”: GIS allows (typically) for a satellite, Google Maps style view of the county but also include search options to find the owner of certain parcels/properties (not lessees tho). You find your old landlady, and contact a lawyer who lives in that county - have him send a certified, return receipt (so it’s good legal service, and also terrifying to someone who doesn’t know what that is) letter that threatens that you will be filing a quantum meruit lawsuit against her (assuming such civil causes of actions exist up there). Don’t worry about forum and jurisdiction - make the threat, and give her an ultimatum to send a new check to place X (your address) by time Y (say, by June 15th) or you’ll file suit. Normally a threatening lawyer letter is like $150 bucks. So, if she complies, you net $550, and if she doesn’t, you’re not screwed out of a big chunk monetarily speaking - anymore than you sort of already are.

2. Forget about it. As someone else said: you may be able to sue and win, but collecting is another matter. If you sue in Florida and are victorious, you would have to domesticate the judgment in Illinois and then would probably still be subject to their collection laws, whatever they are. Here in SC, Bc we have a substantial population of poor-but-not-destitute people, it’s nearly impossible to collect civil judgments. No idea about Illinois.

[Brian Fein]

I say you take her to Judge Judy!  Could be a fun experience...

[Dave Gray]

To make it worse, I believe she's an attorney.  She works for the ACLU.  I called her office, trying to reach her there.

[Sunstroke]

To make it worse, I believe she's an attorney.  She works for the ACLU.  I called her office, trying to reach her there.

Two words:  You're boned

[SCFinfan]

Two words:  You're boned

Maybe not - attorneys have ethics rules - some of which dictate their business dealings with non-lawyers. There may be an ethics violation if she doesn’t give you back the $. You could try that. I had a person once demand back their fee even though I got their DUI dismissed and had a reckless driving offered in its place. I said no, and they brought me to a fee dispute resolution board about it. I won there bc I was able to substantiate and justify everything, but, the sheer annoyance of it - the wasted time and effort on pointless paperwork - that made me consider just throwing up my hands and giving her back the money... just a thought.