Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Glad you are meeting with an attorney. Hopefully the attorney will negotiate an early termination settlement with her on your behalf. 2 months rent is fair.
You can always try to get your insurance company to pay the lease termination fee or to pay the rent for remainder of the lease. Your attorney could give it a try.
I am sure part of the reason you signed for the $3000/mo rent was because you weren't paying any of it out of pocket. It was covered by your insurance company. You just went with trying to find a place to live asap and knew insurance would pay. I suppose lots of people have to sign annual leases for temporary living quarters due to fires/floods in their original homes and then need to break the lease. I bet your insurance company can pay for the lease break fee as surely they have run into this situation before.
They may work with us, I have spoken to our ins agent and he asked me to fax the letter from LL. Said he would see what he could do. At the time we signed the lease did not know what ins would pay, but wasn't thinking about that was just trying to get a roof over our heads. It took about a month of arguing with ins co to get them to pay that amount they kept saying it was twice as much as it should be for rent in our area.
They may work with us, I have spoken to our ins agent and he asked me to fax the letter from LL. Said he would see what he could do. At the time we signed the lease did not know what ins would pay, but wasn't thinking about that was just trying to get a roof over our heads. It took about a month of arguing with ins co to get them to pay that amount they kept saying it was twice as much as it should be for rent in our area.
How did you find this house? I think that price is absolutely outrageous, you could rent a mansion for $3000 a month in a place as remote as Nebraska. It's very unusual to even find a LL trying to overprice a rental that much. I'm wondering if you told her you were fire victims before she gave you a price, then she tripled the price hoping you were too shaken up to think about it?
I agree with the advice about seeing if your insurance company will do anything to help. If that doesn't work, paying a lawyer for a consultation would be worth it. And if THAT doesn't work, for that kind of money, I would consider walking away from the lease entirely. She already got $21,000 for that house, if she really going to stand up in front of a judge, in real court, not small claims, and tell them you owe a further $15,000? Wow.
How did you find this house? I think that price is absolutely outrageous, you could rent a mansion for $3000 a month in a place as remote as Nebraska. It's very unusual to even find a LL trying to overprice a rental that much. I'm wondering if you told her you were fire victims before she gave you a price, then she tripled the price hoping you were too shaken up to think about it?
I agree with the advice about seeing if your insurance company will do anything to help. If that doesn't work, paying a lawyer for a consultation would be worth it. And if THAT doesn't work, for that kind of money, I would consider walking away from the lease entirely. She already got $21,000 for that house, if she really going to stand up in front of a judge, in real court, not small claims, and tell them you owe a further $15,000? Wow.
We were given her name by the director of the association. The fire was big news in the area it was on the three new stations and in the papers, so see already knew when we contacted her.
If you had nothing left, why didn't you guys just go to a hotel or motel? Specially if insurance was paying? Why rent a house? Is it fully furnished?
I'm really sorry about what happened, I'd speak to this person and say you are leaving and that's that. She put no early termination clause? IMO then that means you walk and no penalty, she drafted it, and when you draft something incorrectly it becomes the problem of the person drafting it. No clause about early termination IMO means you can terminate anytime
I'd tell her we are leaving and walk away, and if she tries to sue I'd ask her how she'd look if the media found out she took advantage of fire victims... I mean it's not like you have anything to pack... At this point you have a new home elsewhere so having to rent in the future isn't even an issue. She got lucky she got 2x rent from you for as long as she did.
So many people freak and say "careful you'll get sued" but I rarely see people here taken to court. And I think a judge would be harsher to a lawyer for not putting in an early termination clause!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
