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I was reading the Uniform Commercial Code, and one of the things I cam across was:
UCC Statute of Frauds
All contracts for the sale of goods costing $500 or more and lease contracts involving payments of $1000 or more must be in writing under this rule. Exceptions include:
Specially manufactured goods.
Admissions in pleadings or court.
Part acceptance.
Yes, that is correct. But we're talking about your verbal agreement with him, not the actual lease agreement. In your verbal agreement, was the rental amount you were to pay more than $1,000? If so, then you're covered under the UCC. If not, it doesn't apply.
(and if your portion of the rent was more than $1,000, then I want to live there b/c it must be one heck of a house!)
It says total payment, not partial payments. And suit reads just like this: "Rent, we had a verbal agreement to pay rent to the end of the lease, he moved out and refusal to pay."
Rent was $400 a month.
And now I've moved onto this too: that I asked in another forum:
I was recently and occupant in a place that I moved out of. I live with one other occupant and a tenant and we all paid the land lord.
Now on the actual lease, I am a permitted occupant. It also says the tenant has the following obligations:
(i) pay the cost off utility services at the Premises which are billed directly to the Tenant and not included as part of the rentals, including, but not limited to, water, electric, telephone, and gas services.
The bills for the place are in my name and we were all suppose to pay them equally. Over time the tenant did not have money to pay the bills and missed quite a few months so I ended up paying them to keep the lights on. He said he would pay me back and never did. So eventually I decided to move out because I couldn't pay all the bills(including his part) + rent anymore. The other occupant owes me money too.
Now the tenant wants to sue me for the rest of the lease, based on what he claims a verbal agreement, for $2000 in the state of NC. He owes me around $400 dollars from me paying all the bills.
In addition, the tenant had illegal occupants in his dwelling where we lived. I mean illegal occupants as in occupants that lived in the home that were not permitted to on the lease.
So can you sue and win this case? I know I can counter sue but can I claim anything else? I put what it said on the actual lease because if I was paying his part of the bills and he never payed me back, he never lived up to his obligation as the tenant.
First off, let me say you really need to hire an attorney. Your case is far from simple and it seems you have several complaints. I don't know what county you're in, but in my experience in front of magistrates (judges) in Wake and Durham Co. small claims courts, it's highly subjective. The magistrates each may interpret the law differently. It's not so black and white. The last thing you want to do is go in to court talking about laws and such only to be incorrect or interpreting it incorrectly. You won't look very convincing.
So, here's my opinion of the situation based on my experience and knowledge of the industry and landlord tenant law in NC. For your main complaint, my understanding of the Statute of Frauds as it applies to residential lease agreements is that any lease less lasting less than 3 years from the date of contract are not required to be in writing. And from what I can tell, the $1,000 limit mentioned in the UCC is for goods, not real estate. There are thousands of verbal leases out there and I have a hard time believing they're all under a total of $1,000. I think you're grasping at straws with this argument. As I mentioned before, a judge is going to see that you occupied the premises, you have an established rental payment history and your name was on the lease agreement for the length of the entire lease. As I asked before, did the leaseholder acknowledge your name being removed from the lease with the rental company? If not, then he did not agree to you moving out early and a judge may see that as you defaulting on your obligations. Now it certainly could go the other way, but I'm just trying to show you your case isn't cut and dry and you really need to be represented by an attorney.
Second, as far as the utilities, you need to file a seperate lawsuit if you want to recover utilities. You'll have to have copies of every bill breaking down each person's share and a ledger showing his payment history. You can't claim anything else. You can only recover actual damages, the amount you are actually out.
As far as his obligation as a tenant, that's between him and the landlord. If the landlord chooses to persue him for his unauthorized occupants, he can, but there's nothing you can do about it. Same thing with the utilities. It doesn't really matter whose name they're in as long as they're not in the landlords. Lots of times a college student will have utilities in their parents names. The landlord really could care less as long as he's not paying for them.
But I do have enough evidence to show that it wasn't until the end of the lease because the tenant himself wasn't planning to stay until the end of lease.
In addition, I am thinking about inviting the Real Estate Agency and the Owner of the house to the trail. The tenant as a number of HOA voliations on the house, amounting to about $600 and also has a large late fee amount owed to the real estate company, about another $600 dollars.
In addition to proving that the verbal agreement was staying the whole lease was not agreed upon, I am trying to prove that the living situation was unfair, the tenant was irresponsible and incompontent, and broke the law and lease on more than one occasion, therefore I should not be held accountable to him or anything in that house.
Highly unlikely that the agency and owner will show up. I'm sure they don't want to sit in court all day waiting for a 10 minute hearing that they get nothing out of (that's how small claims court works-everyone on the docket for that day shows up at the same time and you all sit in a room listening to one anothers cases until yours is heard-you could be there a while). If you're trying to prove he was an unfit person to live with and want the owner's input, have them write a letter and have it notorized. I'm guessing they won't want to get involved though. Landlords typically want to stay far away from roommate disputes. Also, the landlord acted illegally by removing you from the lease without the consent of the leaseholder. I doubt they'll want to answer questions about that and I'm sure you don't want that brought up.
You have a lot of things you're trying to prove. Get an attorney.
I asked the LandLord if it was ok to remove me from the lease. They went over the lease and said it was alright. The reason why they said it was alright, that they made perfectly clear, is because I'm not actually on the lease. No papers were ever signed. All I am is a permitted occupant. So I have no liability or responsibility to the place.
Well the landlord was wrong or lying to you, one or the other. They can't make changes to another person's agreement without their consent. Even though your name was on it, you don't have any stake in it one bit, the leaseholder does as you previously noted. Say you have a credit card and your brother requests to be an authorized user and have a card. I'm sure you'd be pretty peeved if the credit card company granted that request and changed the terms of the agreement without getting your consent, right? The agreement and the terms (including who is an authorized occupant) is between the landlord and the leaseholder. So either they need a lesson in contracts and landlord tenant law or they were lying to you and didn't really remove you.
Well from the amount of stuff the tenant has done, and the fact that I have irrefutable evidence on everything he has done, including that it wasn't agreement until the end of lease, what are his chances of winning do you think?
Sorry about the post before. Yea it was me but I wasn't trying to troll. I wanted to look at the case from both sides so I can find weakness in my arguement. A little Devil's advocate. What better way of preparing a defense than knowing all possible angles of attack.
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I believed I called shenanigans on this one a few days ago, didn't I?
So color us surprised that you're both the same poster. NOT!
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