[smokedetector]

My husband and I just bought a duplex. We live in one side and took over the lease for the other side.

The three people who share the side have all moved out as of May and their lease goes through Aug 15. Two of the tenents have agreed to pay up their lease and if they do we have agreed to not take further action, but the other insists that she is moving out, refuses to pay past may, and we can keep the deposit as reparation. The total of the 2.5 months is around $700 for her portion and her part of the deposite is between 150-200 dollars (she maintains she paid more, but the contract and the deposite amount we were given by the previous owner is $400 total).

She says that contracts don't mean anything, they aren't worth the paper they're written on, they're really only to protect the tenent anyway, she's not paying, and we can take her to court but it will cost us more in fees and it wouldn't be worth it.

Her defence is 1) she's not living here and is renting somewhere else and doesn't want to pay two rents 2) from when we closed on April 1 to present the lawn hasn't been mowed (we hired a guy to come next week) 3)we didn't change the filter this month

Obviously I say if she signed the contract then the rent is due, as that's what the contract says. Secondly, the previous owner lives in OK and we haven't ever actually talked to him. Our realtor has been in contact with his agent. Consiquently, we didn't know the tenents were not responsible for their own lawn and/or filters, and its not in the contract either. Also, we don't have a copy of their keys and they haven't been here, so we couldn't get in to change their filters anyway.

The contract states if they move out early and default they owe the rest of the rent for the contract term, plus a $600 reletting fee, plus an initial 25$ and 10$/day for every day the rent is past due each month and we get to keep the deposit. It also states that if we go to court the losing party pays the prevailing partys court fees.

We told her we're not out to be jerks, but we have bills to pay too and just want the rent that is owed us. We are still willing to settle for the $700 until we have to go to court at which point we have paid fees that we would want to get back. We also said we don't want to ruin her credit if she goes through with it because the contract explicitly states we can report it to the credit bureaus, but she says she doesn't have any credit anyway (it is her father who pays for her and is telling her to tell us this stuff and telling us this himself). Doesn't something like that stay on the record even if there is ntohing else, and when she goes to get credit in the next few years she will start with bad credit? We are kind of thinking she doesn't think we will actually do it, and that is why she is acting this way.

So obviously I am angry, but I don't want to let that get the better of me. Is it worth it to sue? Should we go with a lawyer or just do the small claims court? I'm not really sure how it all works and what all we need to do. We are in Brazos county in TX. I think it is worth it based on principle if nothing else, but any other thoughts?

[excon]

Hello smoke:

Don't hire a lawyer. You'll go broke. Small claims court is quick, cheap and easy

excon