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Owner hubby was not present to sign lease. I hadcto bring it to him. Should i have mailed them a copy as soon as he signed it? I did write at bottom that another month security and first months rent was required before move in. It wasnt our intention to not give them copy of lease. Just that we were out of town.
Owner hubby was not present to sign lease. I hadcto bring it to him. Should i have mailed them a copy as soon as he signed it? I did write at bottom that another month security and first months rent was required before move in. It wasnt our intention to not give them copy of lease. Just that we were out of town.
That would be a good idea although I do disagree with Rabrrita that an undelivered lease, "most likely will be interpreted by a Judge as a non executed lease". Money changed hands, the tenants signed their agreement to the lease and thus the contract was sealed as soon as your husband affixed his own signature to it. In my experience this has been normal procedure in many cases. In one case which involved me, I gave two month's notice of leaving a rental house which had numerous maintenance problems which the LL failed to address. Everything appeared to be going smoothly until, quite out of the blue and a few months after I'd vacated the house, the LL suddenly slapped me with a lawsuit claiming rent due for the balance of the lease term (about four months).
In this particular case I had signed both copies of the lease, photocopied it for my records and sent the LL the two "master" copies for him to sign and then return one to me. He never returned a copy to me and when he filed his case he submitted his copy of the lease which bore only my signature and not his. When I pointed it out to the judge (who hadn't noticed the omission) he promptly ruled in my favor since the term lease wasn't valid and I was considered a month to month tenant and had given more than the required notice.
Also, note that reference your comment, "I did write at bottom that another month security and first months rent was required before move in", you cannot add anything to an already signed lease unless both parties agree to and initial the changes.
It is all moot now, since we immediately found a better tenant who gave us all money up front and is moving in today. So we are only out one day's rent, since we had agreed to make repairs this first week of september and delay start of lease until yesterday. it really is a very good property for the price. We are giving them back entire deposit today. I have learned a lot though from this thread. Thanks.
"We didn't give them a copy of the signed lease because they never completed their part of the deal, which was to pay the two months' security and the first month's rent. We delayed the beginning of the lease for five days at their request,"
You do not have fully exucuted contract. You need to refund the money. The whole shell game with your husband and the delays would make me suspious too.
So what your saying is you spent the depsoit to make the repairs and have no money to refund?
I don't think the copy or not providing a copy is the issue since the lease was signed it is a binding contract and you are the wife of the legal owner and you are not a licensed realtor.
They breached by not paying the rent. If you still have the txt messages that will show they asked how much to pay and it doesn't seem to be that they asked for a copy of the lease so that was not the issue of not moving in.
I'm not a lawyer but the copy of the lease seems to me a different case or side issue.
Per the contract that existed after both parties signing is the part of payment to make contingencies of the contract to be fulfilled and the tenant is the one breaching not you. You might not have provided a copy but nowadays with phones with a camera on it you can easily take a picture of each page if they needed it right away although that sounds weird some people will do it while waiting for a hard copy or emailed version.
We even have made a picture of someones drivers license and txt or emailed it to out office email so we could print it for our records.
If someone ever watched the peoples court you will have heard the judge stating..." You can take a piece of toilet paper and write it on there and it is a contract or legal paper" ...I never heard any judge say it is binding if that piece of toilet paper had been copied!
You're never going to believe this. We just received certified letters that they filed against us in small claims court to recover their deposit, even though they never gave us notice in writing that they had decided once and for all that they wanted to break the lease and didn't want to move in, despite having signed the lease a couple of weeks beforehand, and having given the two month's deposit, and having asked that the start of the lease be delayed for a few days so that the place could be painted and flooring changed (which we did immediately, even though the lease said they agreed to take it as is). We managed to rent it out within 36 hours of their having told my husband, "We just filed in small claims court." (This was their way of notifying us that they had finally decided not to move in.) This was on a Friday. We rented it to someone else Sat night, and returned their deposit to them in full (thankfully by check) on Sunday morning. These idiots have no idea how lucky they were to not have been held responsible for the entire term of the lease, let alone lose their deposit. And now we have to go to court! Of course they will no show. I'm so aggravated! I bent over backwards for these people to accommodate them, and this is the thanks we get. Honestly, I thought about filing a countersuit in small claims against them to compensate us for the lost time and earnings in having to go to court about this, and for the single day's rent that we lost, just so that any future landlord will see the record pop up in a search and know what they're getting into, but hubby says not to waste the court's time, and he's absolutely right.
It is all moot now, since we immediately found a better tenant who gave us all money up front and is moving in today. So we are only out one day's rent, since we had agreed to make repairs this first week of September and delay start of lease until yesterday. it really is a very good property for the price. We are giving them back entire deposit today. I have learned a lot though from this thread. Thanks.
I am glad it worked out for you and things are settled. Well were settled until I read your post further down that they filed in court.
If would call the clerk or make a visit, take the the duplicate check copy after the check clears and show them that the matter has been settled.
Perhaps the court appearance can be dismissed without actually being present.
Good luck and I hope the new renter works out long term for you.
They are the ones who brought it to court; it is not you troubling the court. Answer the pleading, file a counterclaim, and continue with your opportunity to further learn. It's a freebie opportunity of a valuable experience that you won't often get.
Tell the judge in your pleading that you made every effort to settle, believed you had settled, and had accepted the loss, and then they filed the suit.
The idea of calling the clerk to tell them it is settled is patently stupid.
I'm using 'stupid' in a nice way, not in a mean way.
Last edited by gv28; 09-20-2014 at 10:10 AM..
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