Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Georgia

My brother has been renting my old house to a lady, her son, daughter and granddaughter. This being an old house, of course things go wrong probably more often than a newer house. The bathtub developed a leak that I guess no one knew about and it rotted part of the bathroom floor. When my brother called Friday Dec.2nd to see when she wanted him to pick up the rent, she told him about it. (His phone had been disconnected so she could not get in touch with him to let him know.) He sent a guy out to look at the floor and give an estimate to fix it on Monday Dec. 5th. This gentleman was going out of town for a few day on Wed. the 7th. I live in Texas so by the time I found out about this I did not have time to get the money to him to get it fixed before the guy went on his trip. I called my son on the 6th to go out and find out what needed to fix the bathroom. He called and spoke to the lady's boyfriend and told him he wanted to come and see about fixing the bathroom and he said he would have the lady call him and make arrangements the next day after noon. He did not get a call back from her. My brother called the lady on the 6th and asked her if she planned on staying in the house if we put the money in it to fix the bathroom and all she said was that it was a health issue. On the 8th my son called several times and left messages with no response. On the 9th my brother spoke to the boyfriend and he said the lady was sick and staying with him but he would meet my son at 10am on the 10th. My son arrived at the house at 9:50 am and waited until 10:20am and the boyfriend did not show up. My son left a note saying he would be in town for a while and to call him if he did arrive late and he would come back out there. Still no call back. On Tuesday Dec. 13th, my brother went by the house and the lady was there moving out. She never said anything about moving, and did not pay the rent. They had changed the locks and when they replaced the original locks, they did not replace them properly, now the house is not secure. Also, there is a broken window pane in the kitchen where she said someone tried to break in on them. She did leave the house clean when she moved. Also, the sewer was blocked and raw sewage had seeped out. The city came out on the 7th or 8th to blow out the clean out valve and realized they did not have the right equipment to fix that and had to come back and fix that. It is fixed now.

Of course now she wants her full deposit back and I want to know since she never gave any notice of moving, do I have to return all or part of it and if I can keep any part of it what can I legally keep?


Asked on 12/15/11, 11:28 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Glen Ashman Ashman Law Office also dba Glen Ashman Attorney

The answers to your question are in the written lease. Since you have that and no one here does, you already have the answer and no one here can guess what the lease says.

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Answered on 12/15/11, 12:15 pm


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