Gave the real estate agent 7 months rent, signed the lease and now my managing agent is refusing to sign the lease. (subletting)

[adelevarens]

My daughter began subletting a room in a shared apartment in May and while I was staying with her over the summer, I decided to take over the lease. Because I was from Europe, I signed the lease and paid 7 months rent as first month's rent plus security deposit. I did this in mid-July and the lease was to start on August 28th. The real estate agent said that he would date the lease September 1st and give me a few free days when the apartment could be cleaned and painted but that I needn't move out. (He knew that I had been subletting and that we already had keys to the apartment.)

I met the real estate agent with the banker's checks at an apartment where he was conducting viewings of another flat. He had me sign 2 copies of the lease and hand over the checks. I asked for a copy of what I signed and he said I had to wait until the landlord signed it before I could have my copy. Foolishly, I accepted this. Sometime later, I asked the realtor why I hadn't received my lease, and he said that the landlord will only sign the day the lease begins.

To shorten this story, the landlord suspected me of splitting the electricity in the apartment and came in to inspect before the existing tenant's lease had expired. He found no violation with the wiring but he was unhappy with a temporary pressurized wall that I had put up. so I removed the wall 2 days later and he said that he was happy with things and everything was ok.

The next day he told me he was not going to sign the lease. This was the 28th of August. And that I had no lease with him and had to get out by the 1st of September. He was angry because I had advertised and found a roommate for the year through Craigslist. My daughter will be using the apartment and she is at college so we found her another student, a grad student. He said I could not have roommates, I could not rent rooms. And I was a liar and had to leave.

I wrote to him and said I had no desire to stay in a building and fight with my landlord. I was willing to leave but he must return my money simultaneously to my moving out. Or I could keep to the agreement of the lease and stay on but that it would mean staying with a roommate. (I had no idea that anyone would object to a roommate especially since the preceding tenants were 2 young men with a roommate sleeping in the living room. (It is a very big 2 bed apartment)

I have sent many polite emails to the managing agent but he refuses to answer them. And the realtors tells me he has now been fired from the building because he introduced me. (He was paid by the landlord, not me.) The only verbal message I have had from the landlord is that if I didn't vacate the place within 3 days, I would be taken to court by him and the judgement would be against me and I would lose all the money (about $15,500). This is a very big landlord with many buildings and a managing agent.

Now what do I do?? Help!!