Batmanwife
Junior Member
I live in Arkansas. I need legal advice on what to do about a woman who claimed to own a house, entered a lease agreement with us, took our money. She does not in fact own the house or property nor does she have legal permission to lease it to anyone. She is not cooperating and will not return our money. I intend to take her to court, but cannot afford a lawyer and don't know how to begin the legal process on my own.
My fiance and I met a woman with a rental property through a mutual friend. We met her and talked and looked at the house. It was in bad condition, but the woman seemed nice and said she would be cleaning up the house and property over the next week. We met her later that week to sign a lease agreement and paid the first and last months rent, as well as the deposit, a total of $1100.
That's when things got shady. This woman never cleaned up the property or made us keys, and was difficult to reach. Her behavior became erratic and everytime we saw her she looked more strung out. The electric company had trouble turning the power on because the address on our lease is wrong by one digit, and the street name, being Scottland trl instead of Scottish ln.
Upon research, I discovered that according to the county assessor's office, this woman is not the owner of the house. The owner appears to be her sister, who is in prison for multiple methamphetamine convictions. Her release date is the same month as our last month on the 6 month lease, though we had planned to stay for several years. When we arranged a meeting with our "landlord" and told her what we knew, she said that the owner was her sister who had already been released from prison and was being taken care of by a family member because of her mental state (on our first meeting, she told us she had no family alive here) and that she could obtain legal written permission to rent to us if we wanted (she never did).
At that point I told her that we were disappointed that she had not told us the full truth, specifically that she did not own the house and that the owner was a criminal with drug charges who would be coming home to her house while we were still in it, and that the legal agreement was void and we wanted our money back. At that time she was very nice and agreed to give us the money back on the 15th (10 days later) when she got paid and would stay in contact with us.
She has not contacted us at all, and when I emailed her with information that I will take this to court because she has committed criminal fraud and stolen our money that we desperately need, she responded with incoherent messages about having to support her children (which she does not have custody of) and needing more time. We have been patient and kind with her but at this point we can no longer entertain her drug fueled games and attempts at pity and intimidation. I have a small baby, which this woman met, knowing that we are a young struggling family and I am a college student with very little income. I cannot afford a lawyer. I don't even know where to go from here or how to get the legal process started. All I have is a folder containing the lease agreement, all messages exchanged in writing, and a voice recording of our meeting where we all agreed the deal was off and she would pay us back.
Can anybody tell me what I should do?
My fiance and I met a woman with a rental property through a mutual friend. We met her and talked and looked at the house. It was in bad condition, but the woman seemed nice and said she would be cleaning up the house and property over the next week. We met her later that week to sign a lease agreement and paid the first and last months rent, as well as the deposit, a total of $1100.
That's when things got shady. This woman never cleaned up the property or made us keys, and was difficult to reach. Her behavior became erratic and everytime we saw her she looked more strung out. The electric company had trouble turning the power on because the address on our lease is wrong by one digit, and the street name, being Scottland trl instead of Scottish ln.
Upon research, I discovered that according to the county assessor's office, this woman is not the owner of the house. The owner appears to be her sister, who is in prison for multiple methamphetamine convictions. Her release date is the same month as our last month on the 6 month lease, though we had planned to stay for several years. When we arranged a meeting with our "landlord" and told her what we knew, she said that the owner was her sister who had already been released from prison and was being taken care of by a family member because of her mental state (on our first meeting, she told us she had no family alive here) and that she could obtain legal written permission to rent to us if we wanted (she never did).
At that point I told her that we were disappointed that she had not told us the full truth, specifically that she did not own the house and that the owner was a criminal with drug charges who would be coming home to her house while we were still in it, and that the legal agreement was void and we wanted our money back. At that time she was very nice and agreed to give us the money back on the 15th (10 days later) when she got paid and would stay in contact with us.
She has not contacted us at all, and when I emailed her with information that I will take this to court because she has committed criminal fraud and stolen our money that we desperately need, she responded with incoherent messages about having to support her children (which she does not have custody of) and needing more time. We have been patient and kind with her but at this point we can no longer entertain her drug fueled games and attempts at pity and intimidation. I have a small baby, which this woman met, knowing that we are a young struggling family and I am a college student with very little income. I cannot afford a lawyer. I don't even know where to go from here or how to get the legal process started. All I have is a folder containing the lease agreement, all messages exchanged in writing, and a voice recording of our meeting where we all agreed the deal was off and she would pay us back.
Can anybody tell me what I should do?
