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!

