Will a verbal lease agreement hold up in court??
My parents had a "verbal lease" agreement with former tennants. The tennants abruptly moved out, and have damaged the house substantially. They have also stolen some appliances. The do not have a formal written agreement for the entire time that the tennants occuppied the house. They do however have a signed and initialed six week lease (that was not noterized). The damaged to the house is absurd...holes in the walls, stained carpet, broken central air system, and a broked bathroom sink...not too mention the house was FILTHY. Please help...any information would be greatly appreciated.
Answers:
A landlord doesn't legally need a written lease. All a lease does is spell out the rules the tenant must follow, and guarantee that the tenant will occupy the property for a set period of time. Not having a signed lease does not limit any of the landlord's rights (the opposite is actually true). Once your original 6 week lease expired, what they then automatically had is known as an "at-will" tenancy or a "month-to-month" tenancy. You can withhold any security deposit to pay for the damages, and if that isn't enough to cover it (or if your parent's didn't make those tenants pay any deposit) then you have to take them to housing court and sue them for the damages to the apartment. Make sure you take photos of the damage and keep any receipts for the repair work. It will also help if you took photos of the apartment before those guys moved in so that you can more easily prove to the judge that the damage wasn't a pre-existing condition.
However, if you want to be able to successfully sue those former tenants, you're going to need their personal information so that the court can track them down: work references, social security numbers, driver's license numbers, bank account info, etc. And also, make sure your parents visit a housing law attorney so that they know what their rights and responsibilities are in their area. They need to know how to legally protect themselves in the future in case of bad tenants like these.
i know in Texas a verbal agreement will hold up in court, plus u need 3 or more people stating that they heard this agreement. also in Texas a sign document of both parties is a lawful contract and can't be broken. it dose not have to be notarized. they can be sued for the damages and stolen merchandise, especially if u have proof it was there before they moved in. you can also sue them for not saying the full length of the contract and i think not for giving u notice of them moving, only if that was something that was agreed to.
i had the same issue about 6 yrs ago. the law might have changed since then though.
It is immaterial whether your parents' lease was written or not in that its term has run & you are not seeking to enforce it in the future, but to recover damages for the term when it existed. You parents should see a lawyer about their remedies.
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