Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Massachusetts

statement of conditions

I am bringing my former landlord to small claims court next week because he refused to return the full security deposit and made up an itemized list of his deductions, none of them being accurate. He failed to yield receipts of the repairs after receiving the demand letter asking for them. When we moved in, the person before had left it a mess and the landlord was too busy to clean so we had to do the cleaning. He never did a walk through at that point or gave us a statement of condition to fill out. We were young renters and didn't know that needed to be done nor that we needed to take pictures. Upon moving out, the landlord refused to do a walk through with us and said it had already been done. A month later we received the ridiculous itemized list. It included damages that were there from the previous owner, but we have no proof of that since we never did a statement of condition. My question is: will we be considered at fault since there was no statement of condition or pictures to prove it was pre-existing damage?


Asked on 5/21/04, 11:59 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Joseph Murray Joseph M. Murray, Esq.

Re: statement of conditions

It is landlord's responsibility to present statement of condition for tenant's signature, without which he is not entitled to retain a security deposit. Contact an attorney as you may be entitled to attorney's fees for violations of the Consumer Protection Law.

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Answered on 5/21/04, 7:41 pm


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