What is the joint-stock company?

Property management company withholds deposit (and charges extra) at insane homeowner's instruction. What now?

• IKYANAL/IKYANML. But I would appreciate opinions from anyone who has dealt with a messy landlord situation like this, especially in Oregon. The players: The Good Guys -My wife and I The Buck Passers (Property management company) -Helpful property manger -Unhelpful company owner The Homeowner -A crazy guy we have never met or had any contact with We recently moved from Hillsboro, OR to Raleigh, NC after renting a house in Hillsboro for 1 year. Our landlord was a Portland-area property management company, and the person who actually owns the house is nuts. 30 days after our lease ended, we received our final accounting. At the homeowner's instruction, The Buck Passers are withholding our $2,000 deposit and also sent us a bill for an extra $1,000 on top of that. Virtually all of the charges are bogus and the property management company does not dispute that. We sent them a detailed list of the disputed charges and our explanations for why we believe they are invalid. According to our (generous) accounting, only $500 worth of the charges are legit. We have asked them to either provide justification for any charges (citing the lease) or send us a check for $1500. Their position is that they are required to do whatever the homeowner instructs them to do. We had a good relationship with this company when we lived in the house. The property manager was great and helped us out with some issues. After we moved in she warned us that the homeowner was a little crazy. There were some minor issues, for instance we cancelled DirecTV when he only wanted a dish mounted at one physically impossible point on the house. We inquired about painting a room and he wanted us to provide him with receipts for the cans of paint in his color for when we painted it back (so we didn't bother). We were always accommodating, and very helpful with showing the house to potential tenants when we were moving out. But the final accounting is completely crazy. For instance, we had an agreement with the property manager to have the cleaning service that they normally use clean the house after we moved out. She estimated it would cost $300 (she had seen every inch of our house several times in the last month as she showed it to prospective renters). Since we had a crazy schedule for our cross-country move we figured it was worth it. On the final accounting, the homeowner charged us $1,200 for cleaning he performed himself (2 people working 40 hours at $15/hr each). This is completely insane for our small house and the property manager agrees and acknowledges that our agreement was violated. Some other things he charged us for include re-landscaping his backyard (these items are all upgrades, not repairs), buying anti-vibration pads for his washer and dryer (there weren't any there when we lived there?), and light bulbs and batteries for smoke alarms (which we replaced at our own expense throughout the year and I have never heard of anyone being charged for). There are more and after some research I'm confident most of this stuff would not stand up in small claims court. An unpleasant but acceptable outcome would be getting rid of the $1,000 so we wouldn't have to pay The Buck Passers anything. After we responded to their final accounting with our disputes, they said they would pass it along to the homeowner. The property manager said that our disputes were legitimate to her. The owner responded in an email that we had never agreed to a $300 cleaning fee, that was just an estimate. (We agreed but had no other figures to go on). We asked for a response within a week (either a check or justification for the charges). All we got was an email last night (from the property manager) with this exact content: The owner refuses to budge. Now I should make it clear at this point that our a lease is between us and the property management company. It describes them as the Property Managers and us as the Residents. There is no mention of The Homeowner at all. Our rent was paid to the property management company. All of our communication for the past year has been with the property management company. The final accounting came from the property management company with instructions to send a check to the property management company. We have never met, communicated, or signed an agreement with the homeowner. But the property management company (the owner at least, the property management wants nothing to do with the homeowner and doesn't communicate with him anymore) insists that their hands are tied and they have to do whatever The Homeowner tells them to. If we took this to small claims court in Oregon, it appears we can sue for twice our deposit ($4,000) plus filing fees and (presumably) travel expenses. The owner of the property management company seems to think that his license allows him to act as an agent for The Homeowner and that he is not liable. This seems extremely suspect to me (I mean, we have a lease with them right?), but I have researched and haven't been able to find any information about this kind of situation. At any rate, they are not disputing any of our claims that the charges are invalid, and they have not returned any of our deposit. This is a nightmare and it's really stressing us out. We don't have a spare $1,000 lying around (and even if we did we're not paying these people a cent). The final accounting stated that they would use a collection agency if the final bill is unpaid within 30 days (although the property manager says they have only done that twice while she's worked there, and in extreme cases where people were evicted). We have spent the last couple weeks talking to them on the phone repeatedly without getting any concessions at all. We have spent a lot of time researching these topics, writing letters and compiling spreadsheets. So yes, we will talk to an Oregon tenant lawyer, but right now we're just looking for opinions from people who have dealt with this kind of thing. Here are some of the main questions: Does the "I'm just an agent of The Homeowner" claim hold any water? If this goes to small claims court, should we just sue the property management company? Do we have any grounds to sue The Homeowner? Has anyone traveled from out of state to sue an ex-landlord in Oregon small claims court? How much of an ordeal was it? Any advice for finding a Portland-area lawyer who can help clients without money 3,000 miles away deal with this? (MeMail recommendations would be incredible) Any other general advice or opinions? We are kind of losing our minds here.

• Answer:

  If this goes to small claims court, should we just sue the property management company? Do we have any grounds to sue The Homeowner? You paid the deposit to the management company, and they sent you the demand letter, right? Then I think that is who you should sue. You can certainly ask for travel expenses when you file, but don't assume you will get those even if you prevail on the rest of the $3,000. Will it be worth it if you get the $3K but not the travel expenses? Have you told the management company and the homeowner that you intend to sue them? That may sway the decision. See if you can talk to the local (Oregon) tenant's union or a similar organization.