As I conveyed in a previous post (see "Unreasonable Time Frame for Requests"), our landlord has been nitpicking the tone of paint and other painting-related issues. These issues have now moved beyond nitpicking and into fabrication (stating, in our presence, that there is red paint visible on the trim when this is clearly not the case). Furthermore, he is ignoring much larger housing code violations throughout the unit that we are not responsible for.
While doing research to begin protecting ourselves, we utilized public records available at the office of our city's board of assessors and discovered that the address of our apartment (and the landlords home) is listed as a single family dwelling with no provision for an apartment at that address. When revealed this issue, as well as the other code violations, our landlord stated that he didn't care and that we could continue the battle in court.
It is my understanding that, because the apartment is considered illegal, the lease and all provisions within it are invalid and that we should be returned our deposit in full. Is this true?
*Note: The Board of Assessors will be contacted first thing tomorrow morning and the Building Commissioner has already been notified.*