I broke a lease that still had 3 months left. I admit it, I did that, and I fully expected to pay for doing so, but only â??actual damagesâ? since thatâ??s basically what the lease laws in Texas say I have to pay. The OC is required by law to mitigate by re-letting the apartment, or at least attempting to. So my problem is, I was only contacted once by the OC, to ask if I had in fact abandoned the apartment, said yes I did, please send me the bill. I thought they were mitigating their damages until I received a phone call from CA stating I owed $XXXX to the OC, blah blah. I did in the initial call ask them to send me a copy of the bill, as I hadnâ??t seen it, didnâ??t know if the charges they were rattling off were correct, did not know the due date etc. Within 5 days I get my mini-miranda, then 2 days later I receive a â??confirmation of debtâ? letter from CA with a badly photocopied last page of the lease (my signature) and a copy of the collections copy of the bill (it says itâ??s the collections copy on it) I send back my first validation, very generally stating that I didnâ??t believe I owed what they said I owed. The same day they pick up my letter they post me back another â??confirmation of debtâ? this time it has the first and last page of the lease, another copy of the collections copy of the bill (this time it had two pages instead of one) a move-out sheet and an initial lease agreement application. I sent back a second validation, stating that the documents they sent were not sufficiently complete for me to be able to tell whether I actually owed that amount. I found discrepancies that I noted, such as the lease stating I had more security deposit than what was stated on the bill, the date used as move out was not either the date I actually moved out, nor the date they knew I had abandoned, but several days in the future, meaning a higher charge. There were charges for things I had not authorized, I asked for proof that I had authorized them. There was no indication of attempted mitigation (the collections copy statement they sent was from back in December) I asked for mitigation results. I tried to be detailed in what I was disputing, and what I needed from them to be able to determine if these fees/charges/amounts were in fact correct, such as a full copy of the lease. I got a phone call from the CA when they got that letter, the gist of which was â??whats your problem, we sent validation, you cant just send us a letter saying you dispute, you must include documentation backing up your claimsâ? I asked her to put that in writing and send it to me, she said she was unable to send personalized letters and that if I continued to dispute it just kept bringing my account back up to the top of the pile (whatever THAT means!) I hung up. So now what? Iâ??m prepared and willing to pay what I owe, but I donâ??t know what that is! I do know that it is NOT the amount they are claiming. Do I go to the OC? I donâ??t know if anythings been reported, I havenâ??t checked my credit reports. thanks in advance!
