Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Florida
I am currently in a one-year lease on an apartment. We were served with our landlord's foreclosure notice in October and then came to find out they had not been paying the HOA fees since July. The HOA threatened to turn off our water if the fees were not paid. They set up a payment plan with HOA but are still $1000 behind. We decided not to pay the last month's rent since they have our security deposit which covers the rent. We contacted them through email to set up a time to do the walk-through and offered to write an agreement as an addendum to the lease that we would pay for any damages they point out during the walkthrough. The landlords declined, insulted me and said they would just serve me with a notice to evict me because what I am doing is illegal. I also went over our lease which states that we were responsible for running water, but not hot water. If I were taken to court to recover the last month's rent would the fact that they are not paying their mortgage and are behind on their HOA fees hold up ? Or would I lose simply based on our lease agreement? I do have financial statements showing that I am holding more than enough to pay the last month's rent and of course I tried to work the security deposit/damages situation out with them and they declined simply because they said that this is not the way it works.
2 Answers from Attorneys
They are correct. You owe rent. Your security deposit is a different issue.
I would like to point out that a landlord may not turn off your water for failing to pay rent. I would have to look it up, but I think it should hold true that an HOA cannot turn off your water for failing to pay fees.
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