Consumption and Real Estate
No communication from old rental agency for 2&1/2 yrs – now I have a $1400 bill in collections?
Question : No communication from old rental agency for 2&1/2 yrs – now I have a 00 bill in collections?
2&1/2 years ago, my husband and I lived in a trailer for 6 months while our new home was being built. We did everything that you are supposed to do when moving out, but to be honest I don’t remember the details since it was so long ago. We heard nothing from the rental agency so we assumed everything was fine.
Yesterday we received a bill from the rental agency for $ 1400 stating that it was now in collections. I have been trying to contact both the collection AND the rental agency, but no answer from either one of them (could be because of the holidays).
What I really don’t understand is that my husband and I used our cells during that period instead of having a house-phone. To this day, we still have the same cell #s. We filled out a change-of-address form with the post office, but even if the agency couldn’t reach us that way, they could have called and we would have taken care of whatever the problem was.
Can’t I just pay what I originally owed since we weren’t contacted?
Ok, first thing’s first: This isn’t for unpaid rent. We were on a 6-month lease because our new house needed 6 more months to be built. And I’m not dumb, people, nor am I a cheat. I didn’t just LEAVE. I followed prcedure to the letter (or so I thought). I have a feeling that this pretains to some sort of damage that they ((THINK)) we did, because I didn’t just skip out on the rental agency.
If there was damage done, I have no problem paying for that. However, my origional question was this:
Am I responsible for paying the interest accrued over 2&1/2 years since they never once contacted us?
Some of you have mentioned that the rental agency is out of the picture completely now. However, collections is not going to care that I was never contacted. I just don’t want to be responsible for accrued when this situation could have been fixed when it happened – 2&1/2 years ago.
office trailer rental
Best answer:
Answer by mommyofboys
So you’re saying you just moved out while still owing money? And what was the money for? Rent? If you owed the money, they have every right to turn it over to collections. Since it’s already turned over to collections, the rental agency isn’t going to do much since you no longer owe them, but now you owe the collections agency. And collections doesn’t care about what happened. They just want their money. Most of the time they will settle for less than what they say you owe though.
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#2 written by gorgon medici TR 1 year ago
First question is why you never received any rent notices for 2 1/2 years. This would be a good place to start with them. This all sounds a bit shady to me. Ask them why they never sent any rent notice at all. If you had any sort of written rental agreement then bring that up if you followed all the procedures for vacating the premises. It seems very odd that they would make no attempt to contact you at all for this long. When you contact the collection agency, be sure to tell them that this is a false claim and that you do not owe the money because you vacated according to required procedure. But I wonder if you do actually owe the money… by the way, once a debt is sold to a collection agency the rental agency is out of the picture and has nothing more to do with it, so don’t even bother calling them again.
Now the thing is, if you did in fact follow the required procedure then you would not think you owe them anything now, which makes me wonder if you really did follow the rules or just left owing money and did not tell anyone at the rental office. It sounds like you moved out owing the $ 1400 and now wonder why you are in collections. This is what happens when you owe a debt and do not pay.
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I’ve been through this scenario before. What happened to me is that my wife and I got a energy bill about a year after we first moved in (which also happened to be right before we moved out).
I talked to the collection agency and stated that I had done nothing wrong and that I was disputing the charge for these reasons: 1. It’s absurd to just now be receiving a bill, 2. There were no itemized details to see how much energy I was actually using and in what month. 3. They were also billing me for a few months prior to our original move-in date. I was as polite and straightforward with the collection agency as possible.
When I was continually called back and pressured, I said this in a fit of anger: “I have already told you why I think that I should not have to pay this bill at all. This company has not proved that I am the person who used this energy, or in the proper amounts. I can make this whole thing go away if I need to with legal action and YOU KNOW IT! Thank you and good bye.”
With that, I was never called back and it never even showed up on my credit report either. The key to my success in this situation is the approach, and the fact that I really WAS in a situation where I was being scammed. If this same is really true for you, you should try approaching it this way.