Title: Los Angeles, Ca La Landlord Accepted My Rent Check And Gave Me A Receipt, But Never Cashed It. Now They’re Suing Us For Unpaid Rent. What Do I Do?

**Title: LA landlord accepted my rent check and gave me a receipt, but never cashed it. Now they’re suing us for unpaid rent. What do I do?**
I’ve lived in my apartment in Los Angeles for about 15 months and renewed my lease for another year three months ago. Until recently, I had consistently paid my rent on time.
I normally pay through Flex, which allows me to split the rent into two payments. The first Flex payment has to be made by the 8th. If it isn’t, Flex becomes unavailable and the entire rent balance has to be paid directly.
In July, I was late and had to wait for some of my business invoices to clear before I could pay the full amount. Once the money came in, we wrote the apartment complex a check for the July rent and personally brought it to the management office.
**Management accepted the check and gave us a receipt showing that they received it.**
Then August came.
When I tried to use Flex again, it wouldn’t allow me to make the payment because my rental account still showed that I wasn’t current. Because of that, we’ve now had to wait for my August business invoices to clear so we can pay August directly as well.
We contacted the leasing office to find out why July still showed as unpaid. When we went into the office, **they literally pulled our July rent check out of a drop box behind the desk. It had never been deposited or cashed.**
They told us they would get back to us, but management is extremely difficult to reach and often isn’t in the office when we go there.
Now things have gotten much more serious.
We were served court papers saying that management had previously given us a notice to quit in July—which, to my knowledge, we never received—and that they are now suing us for unpaid rent. The paperwork references a court proceeding/hearing in October.
So as I understand the situation:
We owed July rent.
We gave management a check for July.
Management accepted the check and gave us a receipt.
Management apparently never deposited the check.
Our account therefore continued showing a balance.
That prevented us from using our normal Flex payment option for August.
We have now been served with a lawsuit alleging unpaid rent.
September is also approaching, and I’m worried this situation is going to snowball because Flex will presumably remain unavailable while the account shows a balance.
I own a small business and operate it from this apartment, so the uncertainty surrounding my housing has basically brought my business progress to a standstill. I’m trying to deal with this responsibly, but I genuinely don’t understand what management is doing or what my next move should be.
There are some other things happening at the property that make me concerned as well. The apartment complex was recently sold, and other tenants have been having serious problems with management. The elevator has also been broken, creating accessibility issues for residents and visitors. I know of at least one person who is currently involved in legal action against the property.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions about whether any of these things are connected or whether the new management is trying to remove tenants. I mainly want to protect myself and make sure I handle the rent and court situation correctly.
**What should I be doing right now?**
I still have the receipt showing that management accepted the July check, and presumably the original check/payment records can also show that the money was available.
Should I immediately contact a tenant attorney or legal-aid organization? Should I attempt to pay the outstanding rent again even though they already accepted the July check? And how do I make sure anything I pay now is properly documented and doesn’t somehow hurt me in the court case?
Any recommendations for Los Angeles tenant attorneys, legal-aid organizations, or people who have dealt with something similar would be greatly appreciated.

Location: Los Angeles, ca