Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Texas
Electric Bill
My girlfriend has been renting a house with 3 roommates for the past 12 months. Every month they got a bill from the ''power and light'' company and paid it. Now after she moved out, her landlord called and said that they were only paying the water and sewer bill the entire time and that there is another company that was subcontracting the electric and never received any payment. She has never heard of this company, never registered with them, and has never seen a bill from them. Now they are threatening to sue the landlord for 12 months payment and he is in turn threatening to sue the tenants. Does he have authority to do this? Does this sound like the landlord set up the account and just never told the tenants? Should they check their lease to see if it mentions anything about payment for electricity? The whole time they thought they were paying their electric bill and had no knowledge that there was a second company.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Electric Bill
Yes, check the lease to see who is responsible for electricity. Also collect the bills that she still has from the company that she paid. Get copies of all of her checks where she paid those bills. If she needs to, call the company she paid for a summary of the bills paid and balance on the account. Make copies and send to the landlord. If he wants to sue for this, she will need to keep all of this correspondence for the court to review. Good luck.
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