Vacation Rental Eviction

[AxiomOne1]

Hello....

A group of 6 friends and I rented a "luxury" condo in Treasure Island, Florida for 7 nights. The payment was extracted via one credit card and I believe the cost came to $2200 for the week. On the third day (after second night) early in the morning we were evicted from the property. One roommate did not have his key and for whatever reason he ended up kicking the door open breaking some glass. The owner caught wind of this and called the cops and kicked us out immediately. The owner has already charged an extra $750 for the damages on the credit card and is keeping the full $2200. The all in cost therefore is $2950. So we are paying $2950 for 2 nights.

Is the owner responsible for reimbursing the nights we were not able to stay (5 nights)? There was nothing ever signed and the $750 was taked on to the credit card without permission.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

 

[Duranie]

How could you rent this place with a huge amount of money and not have any contract signed? How did you wind up paying him? since that person destroyed the property the owner had the right to evict and since he could not rent the place out that soon to make up for what was lost, he probably does not have to give the money back. Whoever gave him the card number likely gave some sort of authorization to charge a deposit, damages, etc..

 

[AxiomOne1]

There was no contract, I don't know how or why. I assume it's similar to renting a hotel for a week (you don't typically sign a contract for that). The credit card was given to the owner to take the week's rent, but was never authorized for any additional payments.

 

[Duranie]

When you rent a hotel room you always sign a slip and on it, it says the rate amongst lots of other waivers and charges. The holder of the credit card would have to sue the owner of the condo in small claims court there, but I would not count on winning. He gave the credit card number so he is giving authorization to charge it, Breaking a window and damaging the place was pretty careless. Any owner would have tossed you all out.