Broke Rental Lease.

[cjane1]

Hi,

    I need help with broken lease from 2012. I never received a notice from CA, National Credit System, but is showing  on my CR. I have no idea what their charging me for but if they rented the apt right after I left can they still charge me for the full amount still left on my lease? The amount is almost 3000.00, I need to get it off my report as it is keeping me from getting an apt.

[Anonymous]

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@cjane1 wrote:

Hi,

    I need help with broken lease from 2012. I never received a notice from CA, National Credit System, but is showing  on my CR. I have no idea what their charging me for but if they rented the apt right after I left can they still charge me for the full amount still left on my lease? The amount is almost 3000.00, I need to get it off my report as it is keeping me from getting an apt.

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What they can legally charge depends on your state laws regarding rentals. Some states allow recovery of the full lease balance, and some only allow recovery of rent for the time the unit is empty.

[Anonymous]

^ +1

Also, some states allow for other fees (sometimes called "relet fees" or "default fees" or "cleanout fees" or any number of other things), and/or interest to be added to unpaid rent.  Some states which require mitigation (that is, require the landlord to actively pursue a new renter inorder to decrease the amount of lost rent that the lease-breaker owes) still allow these kinds of fees and/or interest to be added in.

Unfortunately, the lack of notice probably won't matter much in getting this resolved.  They can show you signed a lease there, and that the lease was subsequently broken (you left), so you can't really argue that you don't know anything about the situation.  Unless you were vey conscientious when you left and made sure to give them written notice of your new address, they didn't know where to send you notice of the balance due, anyway.  Contacting the collection agency to negotiate a settlement may not result in the removal of the collection from your reports, but if you pay it off and get them to report it as satisfied that might help you with future leasing.

[cjane1]

I read in past post that the CA is difficult to work with but hopefully would do a PFD offering 50% possibly lower. I may have a better chance dealing with the OC to get it removed? lf so can I ask for a PDF of 1/2 with the OC?

[cjane1]

When doing a DV will it brake it down for what they are charging you for? I want to make sure they aren't charging me more than they should since I live in Texas I believe they can't charged after a new tenant moves in.

[Anonymous]

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@cjane1 wrote:

When doing a DV will it brake it down for what they are charging you for? I want to make sure they aren't charging me more than they should since I live in Texas I believe they can't charged after a new tenant moves in.

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Send them a Texas DV, speciofically citing the relevant Texas Financial Code. It has a lot more requirements than a DV under FDCPA. Do not dispute it, simply request validation.

[cjane1]

Thank you for the help. I read more about National Credit Systems and doesn't look good getting it removed if it is validated.  Unfortunately it doesn't drop off until 2019, that's a long wait.

[rmduhon]

cjane - don't forget to refer back to the pm I sent you in case they don't verify correctly

[RobertEG]

DV requests under the federal FDCPA do not explicitly provide for requests for an itemization of the debt.

However, depending upon your federal jurisdiction, you may have case law that interprets such a requirment as implied in the statute.

The CFPB currently is in the midst of a proposed rulemaking process, one provision of which may be inclusion of a rulemaking provision for itemization.

Proposed rules have yet to be published, so any such requirement is likely a year or more away.

Some states have already incorporated specific stutory or regulatory provisions that include itemization of the debt as a required part of debt validation.

NYS is an example.  Texas only requires a statement of verification, and does not include any specific provision for ittemization.

No states currently mandate debt validation within any period, so lack of itemization is never a violation per se.

TX, however, does mandate that if validation is not provided within 30 days, then a debt collector must delete their reported collection, but may then reinsert after they have provided validation.