Hold the Phone

In the Jan. 3 Apartment Life item headlined “The Legal Uses of a Tenant’s Security Deposit Are Limited,” a landlord asks if it is legal to use the security deposit to pay a parting tenant’s outstanding phone bill.

Unless this landlord rents apartments with telephone service included (and I seriously doubt that), I don’t know how he could have this information short of snooping through his tenant’s apartment!

Nevertheless, unpaid telephone bills by previous tenants would not hinder a new tenant from establishing service unless the line were to still be active, which is unlikely.

ALAN P. LINSKY

Sherman Oaks