Hello,
I signed a one-year lease starting August 1 and moved into the apartment on August 1. It is a four bedroom and all four tenants on the new lease are new as of August 1 -- the previous four tenants have all moved out.
However, the apartment was "passed down" to us -- meaning there was no turnover between the old tenants moving out and us moving in (some of the new tenants were already subleasing and physically living in the apartment prior to August 1). The security deposit was handled internally (new tenants paid the old tenants the full security amount). I was skeptical about this practice but the property manager insisted this is the only way it could be done, even though not a single person on the new lease was on the former lease. We obliged.
We paid August rent and all was good and fine. Then when we went to pay for September rent, the property manager informed us we were missing a portion of the rent from the month of June and it showed up as an arrears on our bill. The old tenants are not cooperating with us, and the property manager says the arrears is our responsibility. This missed payment dates back to June -- and we were not informed until the end of August. We were not informed there was a balance on the account when we signed the lease and moved in on August 1. Had we known, we would not have "returned" the security deposit to the old tenants in full.
What's our recourse? Our property management is full of idiots based on my conversations with them and they are a pen-and-paper company, so I think it's entirely possible that the payment was made but didn't make it onto the ledger correctly. July is fine -- the missing payment is from June.
However, we're having trouble getting a proof of payment from one of the old tenants.
Our names were not on the lease prior to August 1. Is this arrears our responsibility? Do we try to settle this with our property management, or do we pay up and then take the old tenants to small claims court? Or is it our property management's responsibility to recoup the payment from the old tenants?
Thanks for your advice.