LL withholding security deposit on an early lease terminatio

[unhappyTenant5]

Hi,

I vacated an apartment on the Upper West Side NYC in December even though our lease was not up until June of the following year. My landlord was OK with this arrangement provided that another tenant would be found to take over the lease. This all ended up working out fine as the LL had arranged for a few open houses and found a new tenant within a week.

OK so now everything happened fine, we moved out, new tenant moved in. Landlord inspected the premises and said he wouldn't need to do any repairs so our money (including security deposit and last month's rent) would be returned to us. * We ended up paying him the last month separately instead of taking it out of the deposit ...

So now it is February and I have been emailing and calling the LL constantly to find out what the deal is with our money. Isn't he legally obligated to return our money? Says so in the lease at least...

The last I heard from him was on January 14 saying that the checks were cut and he was going to send them (I have this in an email). But I have not received anything.

So it seems that legal action is in order. Should I get an attorney to write an angry letter? Or file something in small claims court? I am sort of new to this so I don't really know what the next step is...

Thank you for your time!
- J