Can a Landlord Take a Fee from a Co-Tenant to Break a Lease if the Lease Isn't Broken
My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Texas
Here's the facts:
I paid to break my apartment lease because my girlfriend and I split up. My girlfriend has been a longtime friend of the apartment manager. When we broke the lease, I paid the fee in total because my girlfriend said she could not afford the place on her own and would move out.
After I paid the fee, the manager did not make my girlfriend sign the broken lease statement. After I moved out, the manager did not break the lease and allowed my girlfriend to sign the apartment over to herself. I asked the manager what was going on, and she confirmed the lease was extended in my girlfriends name.
The manager asked me what I wanted to do with the fee, and I stated that I wanted it returned to me. The manager kept the fee and applied it to my girlfriends account. After 5 weeks I still have not received the fee. I have also been told that my girlfriend will have to write an approval letter to release the funds. This all sounds very fishy to me considering I never approved the fee to be applied to her account. It seems as though they both conspired to defraud me of the fee and never intended to return it.
Can I sue the apartment manager and my girlfriend for fraud and/or larceny in small claims court? I don't know why I would need my girlfriend to approve returning the fee since the manager falsely applied it to her account. I also want to know if I can press charges against them and have them arrested for larceny/fraud.
Re: Can a Landlord Take a Fee from a Co-Tenant to Break a Lease if the Lease Isn't Br
We have no access to your lease agreement, or to any language within the lease about payment of a fee for early termination of the lease. The language of your lease governs your rights. You need to tell us what it says.
It would appear that, if nothing else, by paying the money you were released from the former lease agreement. If the landlord entered into a novation or entirely new lease with your ex- following your payment of that fee and ending of your own tenancy, then arguably they did break the lease. There is no reason why a landlord cannot break a joint lease and then enter into a new lease with only one of the tenants. We don't have clear facts about what happened, and thus cannot rule out this sort of possibility.
If you paid money to break the lease, but the apartment manager then instructs you that you were released from the former lease without charge and that the money you paid was applied to your ex's rent, then you can consider asking your ex- to pay you the money (she's benefiting from it, after all) and if she pays you come out even.
If you want to sue the landlord and your ex- in small claims court to try to recover the money, you may do so -- the court will attempt to figure out who owes what to whom. But I am not going to comment on what might happen in court without seeing the relevant lease language and without a more complete set of facts.
You're not going to be able to convince the police that this is a criminal matter.