{"id":10224,"date":"2025-10-18T20:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10224\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T20:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:37:09","slug":"altamonte-springs-apartment-tenants-evicted-while-waiting-for-repairs-wdbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/10224\/","title":{"rendered":"Altamonte Springs apartment tenants evicted while waiting for repairs \u2013 WDBO"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. \u2014 Dozens of people living at Altamonte Terrace Apartments were officially evicted<\/a> from their emergency housing Friday. This comes after their landlord terminated their leases as they waited for their apartments to be repaired.<\/p>\n

The evicted tenants said they were promised their full security deposit back, however some reached out to Channel 9 saying management is now telling them they\u2019re not going to get the full deposit back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis right here takes the cake,\u201d said Korneshia Norris. <\/p>\n

Norris, a single mother, says she was supposed to get $3,000 back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look at it, I did the math,\u201d she said. \u201cThey were taking $25. What for?\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter to tenants, management said it was waiving rent for September and October, forgiving past due balances, and returning security deposits to all tenants with a zero balance.<\/p>\n

Norris said she has a zero balance. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have furniture in there that is damaged, and now we don\u2019t get our full amount?\u201d she said. \u201cWe deserve at least $7,000. We have to replace our furniture because it\u2019s damaged and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problems for the Altamonte Terrace Apartments began at the beginning of September when engineers hired by the property manager declared two buildings unsafe.<\/p>\n

The engineers traced the problems to the buildings\u2019 50-year-old roofs, which had let in water, damaging the units and collapsing some ceilings.<\/p>\n

The engineers generated five pages worth of findings that needed to be repaired, which the property manager sent to Altamonte Springs administrators.<\/p>\n

The property ordered the tenants out but placed them at an adjacent hotel \u201cfor the next couple of weeks,\u201d according to a letter given to tenants.<\/p>\n

However, different letters provided by tenants dated Oct. 3 and 4 informed them their leases were being terminated due to the conditions of the buildings, and they needed to either find a new place to live or begin paying the hotel rate as of Oct. 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomehow figure out how we can find affordable housing within nine days now, because basically we\u2019re going to be still stuck trying to come up with money,\u201d Stan Lerner said.<\/p>\n

However, Altamonte Springs never condemned the building, and the property manager\u2019s letters raised red flags with attorney Jesse Clark, who represents tenants in disputes with landlords.<\/p>\n

Clark reviewed Lerner\u2019s lease agreement, which says the property manager can terminate the lease for damage or destruction that makes the building uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

In this case, Clark said the damage came from long-term maintenance issues the property owner knew about and neglected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law does not like excusing people for responsibility for a self-created harm and they don\u2019t like rewarding negligence,\u201d Clark said, calling the roof a \u201csmoking gun\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that problem existed before the tenants even signed a lease, then there\u2019s potentially fraud in the inducement of signing that contract,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

During Lerner\u2019s interview, the property manager walked up and accused the reporting crew of trespassing despite them being on a public street.<\/p>\n

He then refused to answer any questions about the evictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could keep the building,\u201d Tatyana Leggette said. \u201cYou could keep the apartment. Just give me my deposit back that I moved in with, pay me for my furniture that y\u2019all told us to leave in the unit because we didn\u2019t have to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. \u2014 Dozens of people living at Altamonte Terrace Apartments were officially evicted from their emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[9061,9069,1060,9068,9063,9066,9067,9065,9064,634,9062,115,139,141,140,1045],"class_list":{"0":"post-10224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-altamont_terrace","9":"tag-altamonte_springs","10":"tag-channel_9","11":"tag-cornea_norris","12":"tag-darlene_jones","13":"tag-droll_9","14":"tag-holes","15":"tag-jj","16":"tag-jj_burton","17":"tag-local","18":"tag-martha_sagowski","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-orlando","21":"tag-orlando-headlines","22":"tag-orlando-news","23":"tag-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}