We want Miami University students to have a safe and enjoyable time during their stay in Oxford.  The most common questions we receive from Miami students involve disputes with a landlord and arrests.    

Arrests

There are three different police agencies in the greater Oxford area:  the City of Oxford Police Department; the Miami University Police Department; and the Oxford Township Police Department.  Each department has a different geographical jurisdiction, although some of the jurisdictions overlap.  The disposition of your criminal case may be impacted based upon the police agency that arrested or cited you.  

If you have been arrested, we encourage you to talk to a lawyer.  If you are not properly informed about your legal rights, or the impact of a criminal conviction, the decisions you make can have negative and possibly long-lasting effects.  If you have been arrested or given a criminal citation, please free to call us to schedule an appointment.
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Landlord Tenant Relationship

A lease agreement is a legally binding document.  If you sign a lease, you are charged with knowledge of the terms of that lease whether you read the document or not.  You should always read your entire lease agreement very carefully before signing it.  If you do not understand a term in your lease, make sure you talk to your landlord about its meaning, or talk to a lawyer.   

A common problem that we see in our office involves roommates who transfer schools, go abroad for a semester, or simply drop out of school, without paying their rent.  Most Oxford landlords use a "joint and several" lease agreement stating that all of the tenants are equally responsible for the entire rental payment.  That means that if one of your roommates does not pay their portion of the rent, the landlord can come after the remaining tenants for the non-paying tenant's share of the rent.  

Another problem we see involves security deposits.  Once your lease ends, you are responsible for providing your landlord with a forwarding address in writing.  We do not encourage you do this by email or by text message.  We encourage you to do this in written form.   As long as you provide a forwarding address, your landlord must, within 30 days of the lease end or within 30 days of you vacating the property, provide you with an itemized statement of charges that will be taken from your security deposit.  If your landlord fails to do this, you may have a claim against your landlord.  If you would like to discuss a security deposit issue with one of our attorneys, please call us to schedule an appointment.

If you are having trouble with your lease agreement, a roommate, or your landlord, please free free to call us to schedule an appointment 
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