Hi I need help! My fiance and I have just notified our landlord that we will not be renewing our lease for a 4th year. We asked if they would write us a recommendation letter and thought they might since we were moving only due to space and have been ideal tenants. The office manager said that she would only write a recommendation if we paid them $300 in late fees. We never new that we had any late fees at all. For all we knew they received rent on time ever month. We asked her to tell us what months these were for and one was for rent received 1 day late over a year prior (in the previous lease term). The other two were questionable, especially without ever being notified. The office manager has our email addresses, phone numbers, and obviously our mailing addresses but we received nothing.
#1 Is a landlord required to give you a receipt of rent payment each month?
#2 Is a landlord required to notify you of any fee incurred throughout your leasing period, such as a late rent fee.
After resending an email requesting detail of these charges two times with no response, I called only to have the office manager hang up on me after telling me that she does not have to tell me when fees are assesed and that we actually should pay her $700 because she was just being nice to us. We are definitely being taken advantage of because we are moving and they can just garnish our deposit. How can we fight this? We don't have any money to pay a lawer because we just spent a ton on a new apartment and our wedding is in a few months. Please help!!