Long story short but here goes: Moved out of lease month ½ early due to inhabitable living, mold, serious repairs not fixed and from me being sick from the place. Would have taken the Landlord easily to court (I know I would have won due to my overwhelming amt of evidence, documentation, letters from health insptcrs etc..) but moved out of state and now to costly to fly back and fight for the small amt $700 Credit issue: I tried to come to an agreement w/ him to settle since we both wanted to so as to put behind us but he would not take my offer and now after reporting it to credit bureaus few weeks ago he said he would take it back off my credit if paidâ?¦yeah whatever. Now he claims that by next week if I donâ??t pay him he will send collection agency after me and they will take me to court to recoup his money once again. My question is how can I dispute this if it is reported, is it worth to try and fight and it possibly taint my credit report? What should I do?? Thanks this has really been bugging me on how to solve this issue! Petey
It's not just $700. It's $700 and 7+ years of bad credit, especially if he bothers to get the judgement, which can be renewable for even longer. If things were as bad in the property as you state, you should do well in court. As long as you followed your state's written notice process when you moved out. You did notify the landlord of the problems and your intent to move by CRRR, didn't you =) It may cost a bit up front but in the long run it's easier to show up in court to stop a judgement from happening in the first place than to try and get it overturned once it's been recorded. -------------- rfmjb
I've checked w/ my Lawyer and it will be problematic for him to serve me here out of state. I could let make it easy and go to court to dispute but will cost me $500 time off/flight to go and fight. I've also read that being out of state makes it tough for collection comp to deal with also especially being such a small amt. I'm just worried about being able to dispute his claims on my credit report. Yes I did have CRRR certified by Health inpsctr to him and still nothing.
We had the same thing happen to us when we left Idaho. Just out of curiosity, did you put in your 30 day notice that you left because the apartment was basically unliveable? We gave notice to our complex a 30 day notice to either fix the problems or we would take them to court. We found out from legal aid, that we could give them 30 days notice and move out, and we wouldn't be breaking our contract because of the condition of the apartment. All we had to do was state the reasons why we were moving out (not moving out of state), and we have never heard anything from them at all, and it has been well over a year. Andi
Are you willing to settle with him for a smaller amount? I ask because he will have to pay the CA something, so he will not get the full $700. (I have no idea what the split is on collection accounts.) Possibly you can leverage this in some manner (assuming you don't want to spend the time/$ going to court).
