[21-Sep-2011] We rented this house in Scottsdale since Junem 2009. The landlady was so comfortable with us that she left to live in France for one year beginning in June of 2010 and said repeatedly that we were the best tenants she ever had. We hired professional landscapers, pool service and did everything we could to ensure that our home (her house) was well taken care of as we had planned to purchase it in 2012.
In May 2011, I contacted her to ask about renewing the lease as it expired on June 1, 2011. I told her that we really loved the house and the area and wanted to stay one more year. She responded by saying that she had to speak with her bank because her loan was resetting and that the mortgage payments would be increased dramatically. When I asked her if we needed to move, she said, no and that our rent would not increase but she wanted us to go month to month. I did not want to do so because that does not provide options for the tenant. That was May 31, 2011.
Fast forward to June 18, 2011. I received an email from my landlady (Dora Pinter) that she indeed spoke to the bank and that they would restructure the loan and keep her payments low. Unfortunately, that meant that my husband and I (and our children) would have to find a new place to live. She said she would give us excellent references etc. As a bit of background, this is our second marriage and we have four children total, three of which live with their mother in Tucson for the majority of the time and my daughter who lives with us. We were picking up his children to spend the summer with us on June 19. My daughter is with her father over the summer and would be returning August 2. So having us wait to move was not feasible.
Luckily, we found a house right away and subsequently told our landlady that we loved the house and that our move-in date was July 1. She proceeded to tell us that no, we were required to rent her home until August 1 AND keep all of the utilities on as well as maintain the landscaping and the pool. Ms. Pinter was returning from France the first week of August so I can only assume that she did not want the house vacant. When I tried to reason with her and perhaps split the difference, she refused, saying that it was her house and that we were responsible for everything until August 1. I then consulted Ken Rose, the agent for our new house, who advised us to give her a 30-day notice for July 24 which we did.
Dora accepted the 30-day notice but required us to pay for all utilities and pool / landscaping until August 1. I only paid the rent for July and kept the utilities and everything else maintained so that she could not withhold the $1500 security deposit. We repeatedly requested to be put in contact with her in-state agent which she never did and ignored our requests. When she finally provided the name of the woman who would take our keys, Ms. Pinter said we were not to go into the house with her friend and that the only reason why her friend was going into the house was to turn off the AC and other appliances because of the switch over in utilities - a process which should have taken 5 -10 minutes. My husband and I parked down the street. 25 minutes later, Ms. Pinter' friend emerged from our former residence.
Moving on to the actual walkthrough. Not only did Ms. Pinter bring her boyfriend but also proceeded to accuse of us of leaving the house in shambles, killing plants outside, destroying laundry room cabinets, staining a carpet and painting a side outside wall, because in her words, we were trying to cover up graffiti. She went to specific areas of the house - much like someone who had already been there. All of which was not true and we have photographic evidence from before we even took possession of the house that stains were on the carpet and that the house was not particularly clean. I will not bore you with the details but even though we have evidence from photographs and a video we took when we last entered the house on July 28, as well as affidavits from our landscaper and our pool professional, she has refused to return all but $115 of our security deposit. Keep in mind that she had only entered the house three times in two years - once to show the house to my husband, once for lease signing (both in 2009) and then a final time when she moved back from Europe in 2011. As well,we have photographic evidence of the condition of the house PRIOR to our lease signing in June 2009, where there is a stain on the carpet, the yard is completely overgrown and there is paint on the outsid wall. When I confronted her with these pictures, she still refused to return our security deposit.
We spoke with tenant / landlord counsel and they advised us that our only course of action is to sue her in small claims court. I tried to reason with her by providing the proof and her response was that she does not agree that there is what we said there was in the photographs (in essence she is saying we are lying). She also revealed to me that the mortgage on the home is $437,000 (which is more than I spent for a similar-sized house in the San Francisco Bay Area) and asked me why I would even be interested in buying this home as there are other nicer and less expensive homes. She also said that the only reason she is moving back in is to keep it from foreclosure. My husband even had to call Scottsdale police because her boyfriend would not leave my husband alone and told him to get the "f**k" out of his face - in front of my eight-year-old daughter. When I told him he needed to apologize because my daughter was crying, Ms. Pinter's boyfriend said that he wouldn't have had to say anything if my husband had kept his mouth shut. My sense is that she knew exactly what was going to happen (she was a real estate agent before moving to France) and that she was stringing us along so that the house would not be vacant before she returned from Europe.
As a 5th-generation native Arizonan, I am stunned that people are treated this way here. I rented for years in the Bay Area and was never treated in such an unprofessional and callous manner. We spent close to $10,000 to move, pay rent and utilities on two homes and didn't even get our security deposit back.
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