How do you dispute a large bill for damages? Suppose that a person T (for tenant) had a year ago rented an apartment that had some water damage due to a pipe bursting inside the building. There was a lot of back and forth between T and the property manager P, and recently T finally got a bill for $10k+ to cover the cost of repairs, as they're claiming T is at fault due to not reporting it sooner. T disagrees and would like to take this to court if need be. How is T supposed to dispute said bill? This page talks about disputing a debt with a debt collector, but as far as I understand T only has a &quot;bill&quot; for now and it would only turn into a &quot;debt&quot; if T fails to pay. However suppose T wants to be proactive and make sure to dispute it ASAP using the right legal mechanism. Assume T is located in Washington/Seattle.
With that much potentially at stake, you might want to discuss this with a lawyer. many lawyers will do an initial consultation for free or a low charge. However, you could simply write a letter saying that you do not agree that you owe the money and that you dispute the charge. You may give any reasons why you think you are not liable. It might be a good idea to add that there may be other reasons as well, so you do not foreclose any possible legal arguments that you may learn of later. Send the letter by certified mail, return receipt, and keep a copy with a note of the date that you sent it. It is not a bad idea to get the certified mail form first and include the certified item number as part of the inside address in the letter. Keep the copy, and keep the receipt with it when you get it. It is not a bad idea to send a copy by email, noting that it is a copy of a certified letter. This will put a record of the date and time it was sent in the email service provider's records. Normally it is up to the person who claims another owes money to file suit. If your former landlord takes no action, you need do nothing. However it is a good idea to check your credit reports and see if this was reported as a bad debt. if it is, you can file a statement of dispute with the credit bureaus. If there is any further correspondence on the matter, be sure it is in writing, and that you keep a copy. If you are called on the telephone about it, send a prompt followup letter summarizing the conversation, and particularly any statements made by the other party, and any agreements reached. Keep a copy, and send a copy by email as well as by postal mail. It should probably start something like &quot;In our telephone conversation on {date} about {topic} you stated ...&quot; If you are sued you will need to consider whether to retain a lawyer to represent you.
The simple answer is, get a lawyer and explain your case, and pay him to solve the problem (or tell you that it's hopeless). The two main questions would be whether the appraiser have any duty to you, and whether his action was within the scope of what he is supposed to do. If you hired the appraiser, he has a duty to you. I will assume it was you that hired the appraiser (if it was the bank, that's a different matter). Then the question is whether his action or non-action is within the scope of the job. If the place is infested with termites, that is probably irrelevant because an appraiser is not a termite inspector. On the other hand, if he failed to measure the structure, or erred substantially in the measurement, that kind of negligence could be legally actionable. The seller (not the appraiser) is required to "disclose", so it's not obvious that there is any thing that an appraiser could disclose that relates to a map.
australia A tenant must return the property in the state it was given subject to fair wear and tear Fair wear and tear represents the deterioration that occurs in normal use - so it includes wear on a carpet from walking on it but not wear from having a horse walk on it (unless you’re renting a stable but who puts carpet in a stable?) If the wall is in the condition that it was given to you but for the normal deterioration over time, then you are not liable to fix it. As for who has the onus of proof, since the landlord is the one claiming the entitlement, they have to prove it. However, the burden is only the balance of probabilities. So, if there is a fist shaped hole in the plaster wall and there is no evidence it was there when the tenant moved in, then, it’s more likely than not that it happened on the tenant’s watch and they have to fix it. Because putting fists through walls is something that residents are more likely to do than landlords. However, if there is a painted wall and the initial application of the paint is defective, then absent evidence that the tenant painted the wall, it’s more likely than not that the landlord did it. Because painting walls is something landlords are more likely to do than residents.
If the tenant and the landlord dispute the amount to be repaid, the amount repaid is arbitrated by the TDS used. This is what is currently happening. Deductions can be made for costs incurred to the landlord by the actions of the tenant, such as: Unpaid utilities or rent Damage to the property caused directly by the tenant or indirectly by the tenant's poor maintenance Damage to furniture owned by the landlord Cleaning of the property Storage and removal of items left on the property by the tenant Deductions cannot be made for items that are the landlord's responsibility to maintain. This includes essential appliances and fittings, as well as the exterior of the property. At this point, your best source of advice is the Citizen's Advice Bureau. They will have more information about how best to handle this dispute.
Give the contract language now included in the question, it seems that payment is not due until after the invoice is submitted. I don't see any obligation on the homeowner's part to prompt the contractor to submit the invoice, nor to pay until it is submitted. It might be well to keep a sum reserved so that a late invoice will not find the homeowner with a cash flow problem leading to a default, which could allow the contractor to claim damages or file a lien. But I don't see how a lien can be field before the invoice is delivered, because the payment is not due until 30 days after the invoice date, and no lien can be field until payment is overdue. It seems that the warranty on the work is not in effect until after final payment is made. If there is any reason to consider a warranty claim, it might be desirable to get and pay the invoice.
What do I do? Promptly hire a new lawyer. Dispute claims for fees to the extent that they were not earned or that no value was conferred.
You will need to sue them for the money. You may decide that the cost and stress of doing so is not worth it, and just write off the cost. In future you should require a deposit (if you don't already), and not return it until you have checked that the final utility bills have been paid. (I am assuming there was no deposit, or that you have returned it already; if not, you can pay the electricity company out of that deposit.)
Landlord-tenant laws are state-specific, and given the number of states it's impractical to scan all of the laws, but based on a reading of a handful of such laws I doubt that there is any law requiring landlords to pay the oil for a rented house. (The matter would be different if there was a multi-unit building with no individual control over temperature, thus pooled fuel usage). It's not clear to me what you assumed the agreement means, where it says "N/A". Perhaps you believed at the time that the place had a different heating system, and you relied on that assumption. In that case, you might be able to go to court and have the contract voided, and you could pick another place to live. If the "options" are specified so that some things are assigned to tenant, some to landlord, and some are N/A, that would especially lead to the reasonable belief that there was no oil heat in the house. But if the only indications were "landlord" versus "n/a", then you could interpret "n/a" as meaning "not the responsibility of the landlord". Analogously, if the agreement only lists "tenant" and "n/a" then a reasonable interpretation would be that this means "the tenant pays" versus "the tenant does not pay". This reasoning would also have to survive the alternative interpretation that the tenant pays for everything, except that n/a means "there isn't one of these". In other words, the meaning of the term might be determinable from the overall context of what's in the agreement. Since the house does not come with a full tank (as with car rentals), the question of what to do with the residual oil at the end of the lease should also be specified. Unlike gas or electric, you're not just paying for actual consumption, you're paying for potential consumption, and you would have an interest in the remaining half-tank at the end of the lease. You could just walk away from that investment (pumping it out and taking it with you could be illegal, since the stuff is kind of a contaminant), or you could have an agreement where the landlord buys the oil back from you, but that should be specified in the agreement (and I assume it isn't). This kind of consideration could support a claim that you reasonably believed that there was no oil system (if there were, there would be some term relating to your interest in the residual oil), or even a belief that the landlord would pay the cost of the oil (since he ultimately gets the remaining oil at the end of the lease). You attorney (hint) should advise you how to approach this.