Landlord Keeping First Month’s Rent Even Though We Never Moved In

Apologies for the long post but it has been a long few months. For some back story: my husband lost his job this past September. In an effort to save money, we gave our 60 day notice to our landlord and started looking for a more affordable apartment to move in no later than Jan 1.

We found a great place where we’d be saving $1000 a month in rent and it was closer to both of our families, and we could move in Dec 15. After a few weeks of chasing the realtor for a tour and more info, we finally were told to go tour it ourselves because she “couldn’t make it”. We checked it out and decided to sign the lease. We then paid a security deposit and first month’s rent.

Our two conditions prior to move in were to 1) provide a copy of the CO and 2) professionally clean the apartment since it was vacant for a while and very dirty (these were both stated in the lease).

We received the keys a couple days prior to our expected move in date, but the unit was still filthy and the landlord never filed for a CO with the town. Knowing there were certain violations they would need to sort out before they could obtain a CO, there was no way we could move in in time - and we’d have nowhere to go as of Jan 1.

The landlord never intended to fulfill his end of the deal - we put a stop on the check for the security deposit thankfully, but they cashed the check for the first month’s rent.

They refused to return the money to us, ignored our calls/texts and have since relisted the apartment. Obviously in retrospect we ignored many red flags but we were desperate to find a place to live in time. (And thankfully we did eventually find a nice place with normal management!)

Do we have any legal recourse here to get our money back?