Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Utah

apartment lease

in november 06 i rented an apartment in draper utah while i was there for work. The lease required both my signature and my wifes(she never signed it). After telling me that if the work dried up they would work it out with me if i was unable to serve the time required by the lease. In january work dried up and i had to leave and they told me tough beans and that they arent willing to work it out with me at all. So I had no choice but to break the lease agreement and move back to colorado. they gave me two months to pay back the fees of 2100.00. Unless they found a renter. I called every week and they told me no one had moved in. My buddy still lived in the same complex and told me there was someone living there which they admitted to and told me they ''just'' moved in. anyways, I spent the remainder of the two months trying to get an answer out of them with no progress. Now it is in collections and the collection company as imposed a 50% fee bringing the balance to somewhere around 5000.00. Is this fee legal? and is the contract that wasn't finished because of not having my wifes signature valid? This seems like it isn't right (the fee). is there anything i can do?


Asked on 8/23/07, 8:27 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Alvin Lundgren Alvin R. Lundgren, L.C.

Re: apartment lease

You are bound to the contract, but your wife is not. It sounds like the apartment is cheating you. Without reading the lease there is no way to tell for sure, however, the law may allow a landlord to collect the rest of the lease payments on the lease, but only up to the time a new tenant moves in. Find out when your apartment was occupied (get the name of the tenant and the date) - you are liable until the new tenant moved in. Then tell the collection agency that they must provide proof of your debt, including the offset for the new tenant. If the collection agency dates differ from the ones you get, then you know whether the apartment if ripping you off. You can sue the apartment for fraud if there is a difference. But read the lease carefully, it will govern.

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Answered on 8/24/07, 10:13 am


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