Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Florida

For the last year I rented a house with three roommates (one of the roommates parents owned the house) in Florida while the landlords lived in California. We moved out August 1st, and we have no heard anything back about our security deposits. The landlord's kid, one of my old roommates, wanted to perform the final inspection on the house and make the deductions for her parents. My first question would be if she was legally allows to do that? Two of us moved out and were not comfortable with that and they said that if we forced the landlord to fly to Florida then their airfare and hotel bill will be added to our deductions. Are they able to threat that? Would they legally be allowed to do that? Also, when do they have to give us our deposits back? Also they said our bill will be more than our deposit, can they charge us if its over our initial depost? Thank you!


Asked on 8/22/13, 11:08 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Barry Stein De Cardenas, Freixas, Stein & Zachary

1. They can appoint whomever they want to do their inspections. Their obligations to impose liens if any are theirs and they have to ultimately support the claims. 2. They could not impose airfare and hotel as part of the lien against a security deposit. A security deposit is for damages to the unit. 3. They have 30 days to follow the statute and impose a lien on the security deposit. 4. If the damages exceed the deposit, you can be charged and sued for the balance.

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Answered on 8/23/13, 7:02 am


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