Does a landlord have a fair argument in court if there was no oral or written lease agreement between the tenant and landlord?
Ownership has changed 3 times in 5 years at my current residence. The only lease signed was done in October of 2004 for the length of 1 year. Since then there has been none. We have been late paying rent and now the current landlord wants us to go to court. They are suing for amounts that were never agreed on, nor even mentioned at that! Is there any valid argument that may stand up in court pertaining to this. There were repairs too that needed to be done and they never obliged as well. (We live in the state of Missouri.)

When a lease expires, its terms remain in effect except for rental and expiration. The lease then becomes a periodic or month to month rental. When a property changes hands, the new landlord has to honor the terms of any existing leases.

So, the current landlord cannot charge any fees that were not listed in the last signed lease. However, since it's a month to month lease, they can evict you for any reason with one month's notice.

The landlord can take one of 2 approaches. They can either give you a pay or quit notice that gives you 3-10 days to pay all arrears or vacate the premises. Or they can give you a 30 day termination of tenancy notice.

In either case, if you don't vacate, the next step is to go to court and get an eviction notice. If the go the pay or vacate route, you can pay what you think you owe and argue that some of the fees he's charging are invalid. However, if you go that route he may not get the eviction now, but he'll give you the 30 day notce and if you still don't vacate, he will get an eviction order then,

As for the repairs, you would have to show proof that they are necessary, were requested and not done.

Well I will challenge Scott on this one, if a buyer buys a rental that has a lease then they are obligated by that lease, BUT, if a buyer buys a property that is on a month to month rental because a lease has expired, then it is merely a month to month rental and the original lease will have no binding effect on the new landlord that bought property that was not covered by a lease.

So because it is on month to month, they can change the terms of the lease with just a month notice.

We don't truly disagree on this. The landlord can change the lease on 30 day notice, but the tenant doesn't have to accept it, they can vacate. So the result is pretty much the same.

In my opinion, because of the changes in ownership over the years, you have NO written lease with the current landlord. You are both bound by whatever the landlord / tenant laws of your state are. And whatever verbal agreements you've made (providing you both assent to those agreements in court).

In my experience, if you're behind, the landlord will be able to get a ruling for eviction against you and a monetary ruling for any back rent. Other amounts that they're claiming you owe they would have to go after in a small claims case.

There's a "sticky" at the top of this forum with a link to each state's LL / tenant laws. At this point, that's basically your "lease".