Posted on 08/26/2024 5:52:47 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Lodge at Shavano Park apartments in San Antonio, Texas, wasn't about to let 91-year-old Sanda Bonilla out of her lease for some lame excuse like dying.
According to the apartment complex, Bonilla still owed them $14,368 in future rent, as well as another $1,117 for a lease break fee, and they sent the bill to the next of kin with a threat to send it to collections if they didn't cover her lease.
The bill even states the reason for breaking the lease as "deceased."
David Naterman, the woman's son, said,
We went to the apartment complex, spoke to the leasing manager and he told us that he would use the security deposit towards the cleaning and turning over the apartment and that they would terminate the lease.
The fact that they're attacking, coming after the next of kin, who, quite honestly, we loved our mom and we're still grieving, and all they care about is the money.
Bill Clanton, an attorney who specializes in consumer and debt collection, doesn't think the apartment complex has much of a case though.
I think it's pretty unusual. I've never heard of anybody trying to charge an estate or somebody who is deceased for rent before.
Texas Property Code (sec. 92.0162) says that a deceased person's estate can "avoid liability for future rent" with two steps: Remove all property from the abode and provide a written notice of termination. After the notice of death is received, the landlord can only charge up to 30 days' rent.
The landlord can charge for about 30 days once the lease is terminated. You can't get blood from a turnip, and you certainly can't get rent from a dead person.
The family is waiting to see if the apartment complex will follow through with its threats to send them to collections or file legal actions.
The rental agency is not going after the family. It's going after the estate.
👍👍👍👍👍
OH man, I forgot about that oldie but goodie!
100% agreed.
The apartment agency could file a claim against the estate.
Now whether they are that low down and sleazy remains to be seen.
I believe it has always been that way.
In this case, someone is dehumanizing the decreaseds surviving family, seeing them solely as a potential deep pocket, empathy and compassion be damned.
If you pay the break lease fee, there should be no future rent payment needed.
That and they don’t know Texas laws regarding renter’s rights.
If your killer instincts are not clean and strong, you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines. And then you will be in a world of ****. Because Marines are not allowed to die without permission! Do you maggots understand?
~~~Gunnery Sgt. Hartman
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Perhaps the Apartment Agency is being run by hard core Marines.
The estate is liable for debts of the deceased. If the woman had a mortgage, would the lender have to forgive the mortgage? The generous thing would be for the landlord to terminate the lease, there may be some state or local law that protects the tenant, but generally speaking a deal is a deal. Not paying the rent won’t bring her back to life, it is a dispute between the heirs and the landlord. If she had lived until the end of the lease, the heirs would have less money in the estate because she would have paid the rent. Why should they profit from her death and the landlord gets shafted? Usually there is a clause in a lease which states that if the lessee breaks the lease and the apartment is re-rented, the lessee doesn’t have to pay anyore.
“the rental contract was with the mom”
The estate of the mom persists.
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I’m wondering if the contract had provisions for termination by death? “... shall be enforced against me and/or my estate...”
language like that.
Correct. It wasn’t reported, but I would not be too surprised if the family just left all of this woman’s possessions in the apartment. But, because of really shoddy journalism, we may never know the answer.
As an aside, this apartment complex is about 2 miles from where I live. Just a curiosity, I have no connection with any of the parties at all.
The leasing company isn’t ‘attacking’ the kin. They are going after the estate which they believe still has legal obligations to it. That said, what it is doing is despicable.
The leasing company isn’t ‘attacking’ the kin. They are going after the estate which they believe still has legal obligations to it. That said, what it is doing is despicable.
I lost my job back in around 2011 and after many moths of floating on my 401k and unemployment, I fell behind on the lease on my apartment.
I was behind a month but had not received an eviction notice as yet, but I kept in constant touch with them.
Even though I was only halfway through my annual lease term, after I informed the management company about my situation, they allowed me to terminate my lease early. They kept my security deposit, which I had no problem with them doing and said rather than owning the full balance of my lease term, that I only owed 3 months of additional rent as an early lease termination.
I had lived there for over 6 years, and I was never once late with my rent and never had any complaints about me, etc.
So, I made arrangements with them to pay off the 3 months of rent over the course of the next 6 months, which I did diligently every month until it fully paid off.
After consideration of how clean and in such good condition I’d left the apartment in, they refunded half of my security deposit to me which I didn’t expect.
I actually got a letter from the management company thanking me for being such a good tenant and taking such good care of my apartment.
Two years ago, when I was again looking for an apartment, I applied to this same apartment complex, and they approved my application.
When my dad unexpectedly died in 1997, he had recently purchased a new car.
I informed the finance company of his death, provided a copy of his death certificate and made arrangements to return the car back to the dealership where he had bought it.
I figured the loan company might want to sue his estate or me for the loan balance even though I was not a signatory on the loan, but he was living with me at the time. His estate which was pretty much nonexistent, after his life insurance that barely paid his funeral expenses, there was nothing left, but they didn’t.
They accepted my returning the car and wrote off the balance and I never heard from them again.
Landlord Says Woman Broke Her Lease by Dying - Wants $15K from Her
by Steve Lehto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEiZniNt1eU
Apartment Complex Drops Claim for Future Rent From Tenant Who Died - UPDATE
by Steve Lehto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B6QTQPnm6w
Great advertisement to lure in future tenants.
“we will keep you in, even if you happened to die!”
I think, I would avoid their place!
I saw an example of this in a small apartment building I lived in thirty years ago. I lived in one of four apartments in a 100 year old house. There was an old lady who lived in the back of the house on the second floor. I lived there for almost three years. I only saw her once from her door. She never left the apartment.
One of the other tenants had gone in once. He described it as a typical hoarders apartment. Stuff piled up everywhere. Narrow walkways to get through the rooms. She was still there when I left in 1990. She had been in that apartment for ten years or more.
Check location
They didn't.
Once the news became public they backed down.
Which seems to be the only way to get a company to behave sensibly once they have embarked on a course of insanity.
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