Rent receipts laws. Please help.?

[tanishia]

Me and my husband have been living in out apartment for 10 months now. We signed a 12 month lease, but we have to move due to school. We have set up a replacement tenant to take over our lease for the remaining two months. Our landlord does not seem happy about this though. Anyway, we were going though our rent receipts and we have noticed that we have not been given the receipts for a few months of rent that we paid. Every time we have paid, we asked for a receipt, and though half the time our landlord did not carry the receipt books, he said he would bring the receipt back to us but he never did. We are now worried that since we are about to move out, that he will try to sue us for the rent that we paid, but he didn't document in a rent book. Is there anything we can do, or are we just screwed out of our money if he chooses to try and sue us for money that we have already paid and was not documented by him?

[zacchaeus21]

You can get a copy of your cancelled check from your bank and use it as proof.

However, it's very rare for a landlord to sue you for unpaid rent afterwards. The judge will immediately say "why didn't you take action at that time rather than waiting for a month".

[michelangelo]

How did you pay him? Check? Money Order? Cash (the worst).

Depending on how you paid him you have some protections. Obvious example is that of the check. You will have proof the check was cashed from your bank.

Money orders are the same as a check (just a little annoying to get the details from the issuer, but they have them).

Cash is tricky. You should be able to prove you got the cash but can't really prove you gave it to him.

Good luck (and always leave a paper trail).