Rent, Utilities Money-order used for rent

Status
Not open for further replies.
X

Xeyla

New Member
Hello,
I have a 1 year lease agreement with my Landlords (a brother and sister), which started on 1-1-2012. My rent is $650.00, due on the first of every month. I get paid bi-weekly. Ever since March, I have been paying with a money-order, since the sister said I could. The first months rent was paid in January, along with the security deposit ($1300.00 total). In February, I wrote out a check, and sent it to her. Then, in March, I was late because of a verbal agreement the landlords did not uphold. So I had to withdraw money from my bank before paying my bills, which made them all late, and I purchased a money-order on the 3rd of march, and mailed it to the sister. Ever since March, I have been using my second paycheck of the current month to pay the rent for the upcoming month. I have all my money-order stubs to prove I have been purchasing them, and my bank statements show $650.00 being withdrawn monthly. I have to mail the rent to the sister, since she lives in a different town than me. Today I get a call from her saying I am missing the rent for August. I told her I did mail it out to her, back on July 23rd, but she claims she never received it. So I call the money-order hotline to see if the thing was cashed. It was, 5 days after I sent it out. I went through the past 4 months of stubs seeing if they were all cashed, and they were. So now the landlord wants to meet with me to see who made the discrepancy. I cannot afford to buy a photocopy of the money-orders to see who endorsed them for cashing. I made all of them out to her, and only her. What can I do to show the fault is not mine, aside from spending almost $100 to get the photocopies?
 
I suggest you shell out the $100 to PROVE you've paid almost $3,000. Otherwise, without PROOF, your landlord might evict you. He won't take your word for it, he will want PROOF. But, I smell a rat in this picture, don't you? Hint, it sent you, nor is it the landlord. Who's left? Yeah, her!!!!!!!

You are involved in a VERY complicated arrangement.

Why not suggest to the landlord you send him the money, via money orders each month?

I don't see how your sister adds ANYTHING to this situation, except complications and potential trouble for you!!!!!


Sent from my iPad3 using Tapatalk HD
 
Do these money orders have a payee - meaning that they are not made out to cash but to the landlord? If they were made out to her, you can tell him there are two possibilities: (a) she cashed them, or (b) someone else cashed them and there was fraud which you will report and there will be a formal criminal investigation. Now if you made out money orders to cash, that was not smart. However, if this is what you were told to do, then you would have to tell the landlord that they bear the risk of loss. If they take you to court, this is what you'll claim (and if the IRS finds out about this, they can choose whether or not to audit the landlord for unreported income.) Understand that I don't know all the details and am just responding with my thoughts based upon the facts you've provided.
 
The land lords are a brother and sister. Not my sister. The brother (I'll call him Ed)told me to make the money-orders out to his sister (I'll call her Susan), since she keeps track of the book-keeping. I write Susan's first and last name on the "payee" line. I write my full name+address on the purchaser line. If it helps, I've been buying the money-orders from my place of work, which is Walmart. Is Walmart able to issue a photocopy of the cashed money-orders, or do I need to do that online at moneygram.com?
 
I don't know. Before you start spending the money let the brother and sister know that the checks are made out to the sister. It would be difficult for anyone else to cash them. Before you start spending more money to obtain copies, let them check their own records since the only other explanation is fraud. You can probably also let them know that if you need to pay to obtain copies and that they did cash the check, you'll deduct the expense from the rent as would be expected and fair. Now it is possible that these money orders were lost in the mail. Perhaps you ask Walmart where to go in order to be able to get copies of the cashed money orders.
 
I did not know I could deduct the fee from my rent. Thank you for your advice, Susan said she was going to call me back to set up an appointment where we can get together and find the "discrepancy", which I fully believe is with her. I am going to walmart and ask about the photocopies to see if they can do anything.

Again, thank you for your help,
~Sandra
 
Before assuming you can deduct fee make sure you check with a local attorney or you might have additional legal issues. I am certain Walmart has a security measures for misplaced and/or stolen money orders talkto Walmart about this. In addition its quite possible Walmart is not one issuing money order but a company like moneygram etc so you may need to go through them. Contact walmart tell them your issue and ask to be connected with proper personnel to deal with issue
 
Xeyla said:
I did not know I could deduct the fee from my rent. Thank you for your advice, Susan said she was going to call me back to set up an appointment where we can get together and find the "discrepancy", which I fully believe is with her. I am going to walmart and ask about the photocopies to see if they can do anything.
Click to expand...
What I am saying is that if your landlord is making you pay for the cost of proving that she cashed a check she should have known she cashed, she should be paying for that expense.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Share this page

Get a free case review from a lawyer
Back
Top