Tennessee Residential Lease Issue | Is Having To Pay For Attorney Fees The Same As Having To Pay For Mediation?

TLDR: Our landlord is charging us for damages we believe are normal wear and tear, and we found out one of her receipts was doctored (fraud). Now she wants us to pay for mediation (and says the lease says we have to), but we don't think our lease says this, it only says we have to pay for an attorney. The house was in Nashville, TN, and we no longer live there. Do we have to pay for mediation?

Hi everyone!

I'm new here and have a legal question about a landlord issue. Last year, I lived in a house with 6 other girls, and we're having trouble getting our security deposit back. We believe many of the charges are just normal wear and tear, so we started negotiating with our landlord. During this process, we discovered that one of the receipts she sent us was doctored. The largest charge, $2,615.25, included expenses for a different property covered up with white bars, which we discovered could be removed in a PDF editor. So she was trying to charge us for expenses from another property, which is fraud (I think)!

This has made us distrust all the charges. Now, the landlord says we need to go to mediation and that we (the tenants) must pay for it. We've read through it and we don't think our lease agreement mentions this requirement, only the requirement to pay for an attorney, but I don't know if this is the same thing. I've included the relevant sections below, which state we have to pay for her attorney and the mediation clause.

Is having to pay for attorney fees the same as having to pay for mediation? Do we have to pay for mediation? Any tips on handling this situation in general would be appreciated. For context, the house was in Nashville, TN, and none of us live there anymore (it was a college house), so going to small claims court would be difficult as we'd have to fly down.

Let me know if you need more details.

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Sections of the lease that mention disputes:

41. Attorney's Fees. Should it become necessary for Landlord to employ an attorney to enforce any of the conditions or covenants hereof, including the collection of rentals or gaining possession of the Property, Tenant agrees to pay all expenses so incurred, including a reasonable attorneys' fee.

42. Dispute Resolution. The parties will attempt to resolve any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement through friendly negotiations amongst the parties. If the matter is not resolved by negotiation, the parties will resolve the dispute using the below Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedure: Any controversies or disputes arising out of or relating to this Agreement will be submitted to mediation in accordance with any statutory rules of mediation for the State of Tennessee. If mediation does not successfully resolve the dispute, the parties may proceed to seek an alternative form of resolution in accordance with any other rights and remedies afforded to them by law.