Am I legally responsible?

[wwevans]

For personal reasons, I had to terminate a lease agreement early and had the owners permission to leave. When I received the bill from the rental agency, there were charges I wanted to dispute. In the meantime, the owner paid the rental agency that money and now wants to sue me to get the money back. The issues haven't been resolved, but since the agency has been paid, they aren't interested anymore.

So my question is, since the contract was between me and the rental agency, and the rental agency has been paid, am I now legally responsible to pay the owner back? The owner doesn't care what my issues are, he just wants his money. The rental agency doesn't care what my issues are because they're paid.

If I ever get resolution to my issues with the bill, I will pay my debt. But not before.

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

What were these charges for?

Gail

 

[wwevans]

It wasn't so much the charges as some of the amounts. They were just excessive ($92 for one week of electricity, $1,500 for "administrative fees", and things like that). The charges totaled almost $2,000 AFTER they kept my $1,800 deposit. And none of the charges had to do with replacing anything, or pet damage (we didn't have a pet).

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

Your landlord believes they did you a favor by agreeing to allow you to break your lease early and not holding you to paying the remaining months of rent on the unit until it could be rerented. It sounds like you lost your security deposit because of this lease breaking, correct?

We can't tell you if these fees are legitimate or not but it is quite likely that if they aren't paid the landlord will consider a lawsuit against you for this amount. If so the court will decide the issue.

Gail

 

[emorgan0831]

If this goes to court you may want to consider a counter suit. But you should really sit down and weigh your options before going to court over it.