Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Texas
So we signed a lease with a property management company and renewed that lease after 1 year for an additional 8 months. Shortly after renewing the lease through the property management company the landlord and prop mgmt co had a falling out and their property management contract was terminated. Now the landlord is contacting us saying we are liable for gas bills over the past year.
In the lease we signed, it stated that electricity and gas were to be paid by individual tenants to the respective utility companies. Only water was subject to a ratio utility billing system per the lease addendum. We have additional documents from the property management company stating that tenants must set up their own gas.
When we moved in, we discovered there was only one meter for the entire row of 4 units (all owned by the person who owns our unit). When we contacted the property managment company they said that they would pay gas. They said this to my neighbor as well who lives in one of the owners other units. Unfortunately, we didn't get this in writing as an addendum to our lease. However, we expected to pay for our own metered (or submetered) gas service rather than being subject to a ratio utility billing system.
The owner wants to bill gas based on the number of bedrooms. While I believe this type of billing formula is permissible by law, we never agreed to it. Our unit and our neighbors each have two bedrooms while the other two units are one bedroom. We both feel like this sort of RUBS would essentially have us subsidizing the other tenants heating bills.
I am curious what our legal obligation is here, given that the lease says we were to pay gas bill directly to the utility and the management company stated to us and our neighbor that they would pay. We don't have it in writing from the management company that they would pay, they merely told us that when we discovered all the units shared a meter.
Any help or guidance in this matter would be greatly appreciated!
Re: Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
Why the {bleep} did you renew the lease, knowing this to be the case? That makes it much harder to argue that you didn't knowingly agree to the arrangement.
Re: Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
I am not quite sure I understand. The lease was renewed with the assumption that the property management company would be paying the gas bill as they had previously told both my neighbor and I. I realize it was a mistake not to get that in writing in the renewed lease.
Sometime after renewing the lease through the property management company, the owner fired the management company. A few months after that she contacted us regarding the gas bill and said we would need to pay the previous years gas bills based on the RUBS she had just come up with. The RUBS was not mentioned in our original lease or the renewal. We signed the renewal under the implicit understanding that the gas bill would continue to be paid as that is what we were told by the management company.
Do we have any obligation to pay the previous bills or any other obligation iin this scenario? Thanks again for your response!
Re: Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
We're not psychics here. If you don't tell us something, we're not going to know it. Are you stating that you discussed this situation with your management company before renewing the lease? And they agreed to cover the utilities for the apartment, but only during the period of renewal? And you were cool with that, even though you still paid for the utilities before that time? But you never got anything in writing? And now the management company denies making the agreement? Or what?
Re: Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
I apologize if I was unclear in my previous posts.
We discussed the gas bill issue with the management company after initially moving in and they said they would pay for the gas. When we renewed the lease they said the gas bill would continue to be paid by them as it had been.
The owner of the units fired the property management company after we were in the renewed lease period. A few months later she contacted us, stating that she had been paying the gas bill all along and that the former property management company was supposed to be collecting the money from us.
She wants to bill us for the backdated gas bills that she paid while we were under the original lease period using the RUBS described in my original post.
I do not believe the owner has contacted the property management company at all about this issue. She seems very hesitant to deal with them. The property management company employee who told my neighbor and I that that they would pay the gas is no longer employed there (it seems to be a very high turnover office).
Are we obligated to pay this, given that the property management company told my neighbor and I that they would pay the gas bill? Or does the fact that we dont have this in writing and the fact that the lease stipulates that residents must each establish their own account with the gas company and pay the utility directly mean we are obliged to pay the past gas bills according to the RUBS she decided on? Thanks again for your posts.
Re: Utility Dispute Between Landlord, Tenant and Former Property Management Co
This is more of a strategy than a legal answer, but if it were me... I would inform the landlord that, due to the shared utility meters, I contacted the management company and worked out an arrangement with them whereby they were going to pay all of the gas bills. I would indicate that, although that's not in writing, it is nonetheless supported by past practices and can be confirmed by your neighbor.
Note that this strategy may well lead to your having to move at the end of your lease term; also that your landlord is free to address these issues at that time, for example by making her RUBS proposal part of any new lease.