Anyone know Colorado Rental law?

a bit long winded, no smartasses please.....

She and i have been together for a couple years now. In mid 2007, she had a couple months left on her 6 month lease, just lost her job, so she tried to talk to the manager about getting released from the lease, unfortunately she didnt get anything in writing. Needless to say, we moved in together at that time and life went on. We ended up moving to texas for a short time and then came back to colorado in june of 2008. Earlier this month she got served with papers and we find out she is being sued by the apartments for $1421.17 (Rent-$593.67, Late fees-$35, repairs-$62.50, Locks/Keys-$45, Termination fee-$685, Eviction-$200, less a $200 Security deposit). I told her she should call the lawyers and see if the apartments would take a lump sum settlement in lieu of making payments on the full amount. She attempted that and it got turned down. Now they have sent her a "Financial Questionnaire For Payment Schedule" so that she can make payments....

So she sent off the financial disclosure and they replied with a call and she called them back today and they discussed a payment plan, only now the sum has jumped from 1400 and change to 1900 and change, it is assumable this is legal fees and whatnot.

I didnt have a problem paying the 1400 and change as this is a mistake she made, gotta own up and pay it..... but here we face an extra $500 just because its gone to legal. In collections, its my understanding the collections agency can only go after the amount of debt, but the original debt seeker settles for around half, and anything over half, the collections company gets to keep. Obviously this is a different animal and i cant help but think the apartments have an obligation to seek her out via certified mail or something else before just turning it over to a lawyer and have them tack on an extra $500 to the bill....

it also bears to mention that she called the apartments today and asked for copies of the certified letters they sent to try and collect, but they said they dont send certified letters, but claimed to send mail to her at our current address to make attempts to collect but we never received anything.

Again, i have no problem paying the 1400 and change to put it behind me but if there was a step they failed to take to send it to legal, then i dont feel we should be the ones paying them $500 to collect 1400 in money that we are more than willing to pay.... had we received something from her apartments before, we would have paid it.

What say you?

http://www.rentlaw.com/coloradolandlordtenant.htm

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Originally Posted by ssf467

http://www.rentlaw.com/coloradolandlordtenant.htm

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already been there.... if there is some pertinent info somewhere there, can you direct me to it a bit better?

I guess a better way to ask my question is this.....

Is it legal in the state of Colorado to immediately resort to suing someone to collect a debt that you previously have not attempted to collect?

I don't know the true legal answer to your question but my thoughts would be they needed to send a bill to you first, then you never paid or couldn't be contacted. Then they go to a collection agency who makes the calls. then if all that fails they go to the courts. now I don't know if it is necessary to take all those steps as the court would get things done quicker and force you into a payment plan.

If you can show you offered to pay them in full for the full amount they claimed you might be able to counter-sue them for court fees and have that deducted from the final amount you owe.

Since you don't have anything in writing you are pretty much SOL on winning the case since she was there, still had 6 months left and never received anything or paid anything.

I had an apartment I needed to get out of but there was a 1 month fee to be paid and that was only due to special circumstances.

Did you get a JUDGEMENT, in a court of law?

Or a demand letter from an attorney?

The fees/interest are chargeable, IF they can show they served her with notice of the debt.

They also have to prove that the unit went unrented for the full-amount of the lease. Contact the people in the unit now, and find out when theymoved in, although that might be impossible.

a LOT of times attorney's will make a lot of demands that the court has not ordered, like the financial disclosure statement, unless she was SERVED the disclosure by a process server, or she accepted registered mail she was under no obligation to fill it out.

Often, apartment management companies simply keep an attorney on contract to pursue debt collection actions, if they can't prove service to her, then they don't have a valid enforceable claim.

So, the big question is: Did she, or did she not, get sued and have a judgement entered against in court? If she DID, then the judgement may accrue reasonable fees for it's satisfaction, and interest may apply to it also.

Lawyers LOVE to talk tough, especially debt collection lawyers, often they seem to be representing that the debt has already been ajudicated, when it has not.

Bottom line - if she was never properly served with any papers, or if a process server LIED (like saying he served the papers on her, when she happened to be in Texas at the time) you can go back to court to open the case again. The fees they charge are always right on the brink of being reasonable, so that a person may just pay them without going to court to challenge them. She should pull a copy of her credit report to see if a judgement has been entered against her, she can do it for free. No judgement, no debt - period.

But the answer is, yes, someone can just up and sue you for a debt without giving you any chance to satisfy it. But it doesn't sound like she's ever actually been sued.

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Originally Posted by ldmaster

Did you get a JUDGEMENT, in a court of law?

Or a demand letter from an attorney?

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She got served a summons. Has not been to court yet.

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The fees/interest are chargeable, IF they can show they served her with notice of the debt.

They also have to prove that the unit went unrented for the full-amount of the lease. Contact the people in the unit now, and find out when theymoved in, although that might be impossible.

a LOT of times attorney's will make a lot of demands that the court has not ordered, like the financial disclosure statement, unless she was SERVED the disclosure by a process server, or she accepted registered mail she was under no obligation to fill it out.

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thats what i thought, and i didnt want her to fill it out, but she did anyway, and sent it in without me seeing what all she put on there and what she was actually agreeing to.

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Often, apartment management companies simply keep an attorney on contract to pursue debt collection actions, if they can't prove service to her, then they don't have a valid enforceable claim.

So, the big question is: Did she, or did she not, get sued and have a judgement entered against in court? If she DID, then the judgement may accrue reasonable fees for it's satisfaction, and interest may apply to it also.

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she had been served with a summons, she opted to try and reason with them, they sent her the financial disclosure and she filled it out and sent it in. then they called her to offer her a payment plan of $200 for the next X amount of months, stating this didnt have any interest or anything else with it, but the sum is obviously not the first figure of $1400 and change...

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Lawyers LOVE to talk tough, especially debt collection lawyers, often they seem to be representing that the debt has already been ajudicated, when it has not.

Bottom line - if she was never properly served with any papers, or if a process server LIED (like saying he served the papers on her, when she happened to be in Texas at the time) you can go back to court to open the case again. The fees they charge are always right on the brink of being reasonable, so that a person may just pay them without going to court to challenge them. She should pull a copy of her credit report to see if a judgement has been entered against her, she can do it for free. No judgement, no debt - period.

But the answer is, yes, someone can just up and sue you for a debt without giving you any chance to satisfy it. But it doesn't sound like she's ever actually been sued.

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I suspect you don't need to be taken to court, the original lease probably specified all the above fees if you default, so if she signed a lease she is probably liable for it without even getting a judgement against her. Also, they don't need to attempt to collect at all (ever watch peoples court, they address that all the time). Most leases have a 1 month buy-out clause, so if she would have just paid the month way back when you could have avoided the extra fees.

You didn't mention a deposit, make sure she gets credit for it, plus interest too if she left one. (you listed $62.50 for repairs, if this is after deposit, they must provide itemized list & proof it was fixed by law or they can't claim it, and not some hand-written bill from joe blow claiming to have fixed somthing - lots of super's keep deposits and claim to have done work).

It also looks like that is all they are attempting to collect 1 month rent + fees (not the several months she defaulted on), so they don't need to prove that the apartment was empty. They can only attempt to collect more than the 1 month if they can prove it sat empty for longer.

I've had to buy out of several leases for various reasons. In all honesty, $1900 doesn't seem like that expensive of a lesson. The last place i rented was close to that monthly, so it cost that much to buy out of the lease. Now you know why attorneys have lots of bad jokes about them, pay it consider it a lesson learned and read the lease next time you sign up for somthing. Oh yeah, dont' forget to write off your move in your taxes this year to help offset your bill.

Ask for mediation. That would be better than taking it to court.

Unfortunately Colorado State law is not on your side with this issue if she did not get anything in writing. You could try to fight it in court but you should get a lawyer for that and your legal fees will end up costing you more than a settlement.