3 years ago
Want your security deposit back? Want to sleep wit...
Want your security deposit back? Want to sleep without loud noise on the weekends? Look elsewhere. Units are beautiful inside, the repairman is nice, but management is unorganized & unethical, neighbors are loud, hallways get dirty & smelly, mail has issues getting in & is constantly stolen from the front, homeless people break in, etc.
We were perfect tenants that always paid rent on time & took great care of our unit. Our lease start-to-termination time was one year with no automatic month-to-month after. We still generously gave 30-days notice & even moved out early & still paid rent. Before our lease termination date, someone had already moved into our room.... but, Lantern Lofts claimed that we were still on the lease.
They tried to get us to sign a "Roommate Release" form which would forfeit our $4,300 security deposit. We were advised by a realtor friend to never sign such a form. We asked multiple times where to return our keys and Lantern Lofts said to "leave them wherever we want" because "they're our keys, so we can do what we want with them". We held onto the keys to let the judge decide because we didn't want to create a liability issue were anything to happen. Lantern Lofts did not give an inspection nor a place to return our keys because they claimed we were still on the lease.
We recently won a court case against Lantern Lofts to get our $4,300 security deposit back. We had moved out-of-state... When we flew out to SF & showed up for the court hearing, we were told that Lantern Lofts showed up the day before to reschedule the hearing. (We were also told there was another party suing Lantern Lofts for the same reason, but with about a $10,000 security deposit. They were able to settle outside of court.) Lantern Lofts picked the new hearing date, then they didn't show. Flying to San Francisco twice cost us over $3,000. We also had an added cost of stress & court preparation.
Working hard throughout the year to be the best tenants we could be, we were expecting to get our +$4,300 deposit returned... but instead, of being returned to our pockets, it was simply a -$4,300 reminder to be careful who you sign contracts with...