If an Aggie student tenant emailed you to say that they wanted to renew their lease and asked what the new rate was, would you:

A) Immediately email them the new rate and a renewal agreement for their signatures.

B) Be uncertain about the tenant's intentions because the rent had increased, and contact them to clarify if you don't hear back from the tenant.

C) Wait to hear back from the tenant, let 2 weeks pass at which time the deadline for a signed lease renewal agreement had passed (10/1/22). and proceed to lease the property out from under them without notifying the tenant at all.

Please reference the redacted emails exchange below.

RikkiTikkaTagem said:

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Not a realtor.

But I'm going to give you some advice.

For $3400/month just buy this house next to campus. I assume you're an ophthalmologist who has been in practice for over 20 years and if you can afford that rent you can afford this house payment. You can VRBO it when your kid(s) graduate. If you pay $3400/month and put 20% down, you'll have it payed off in 8 years

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/507-Brooks-Ave-College-Station-TX-77840/50309236_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare

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It's a 5 BR house. lol. In retrospect, it might have been a good move when my son started TAMU 5 years ago, but this is my daughter's last year.

Thanks tho.

Did you ever reply back after they told you the price to confirm that would still work?

jopatura said:

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Did you ever reply back after they told you the price to confirm that would still work?

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They did not. The rent only went up a small amount that came to $25 per student. It's hard to imagine that it was enough to alter anyone's decision to renew.

Nor did the agent follow up.

The girls thought that all they had to do was tell the agent that the wanted to renew their lease. There is no mention of a lease renewal agreement in the agent's emails, just the need to notify her by 9/15.

Of course, these kids trusted their leasing agent to guide them through the process and did not read the fine print in the lease requiring a signed renewal agreement by 10/1.

I'm confused. Emails are from September of last year. It is currently May of this year, so don't you still have 3 months to notify intent to renew. Discussion seems to indicate you are losing your lease.. but don't you still have a couple of months to notify? Are they still living there now? Trying to understand the problem.

cjsag94 said:

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I'm confused. Emails are from September of last year. It is currently May of this year, so don't you still have 3 months to notify intent to renew. Discussion seems to indicate you are losing your lease.. but don't you still have a couple of months to notify? Are they still living there now? Trying to understand the problem.

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This particular property requires you to renew by 10/1. So these kids had to renew after only occupying the property for a month or so.

They are in the property now and are being forced to move out this summer because the agent assumed they did not want to renew. They sent an email stating their intention to renew and asked for the new rate. Agent replied with rate and "Thanks!" Kids thought their request to renew had been accepted and never said anything more. Agent thought they did not like the 4% rate increase and had decided not to renew because they did not respond.

Agent never contacted to kids to confirm and did not notify them of that their lease had not been renewed. They found out through the grapevine that other kids were leasing their home.

It's a huge mess, and the kids and families are very upset.

Stan Crowch said:

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The agent probably wanted to make a full commission on a new lease.

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I've been tossing that thought around myself.

It's an ugly accusation to make, but you gotta wonder.

If it's true in any way, the agent needs to be run out of town.

EclipseAg said:

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EyeBalz said:

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Kids thought their request to renew had been accepted and never said anything more. Agent thought they did not like the 4% rate increase and had decided not to renew because they did not respond.

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What a mess.

It's just like college kids to not respond with a confirmation email or text. But the realtor should have followed up. A quick phone call would have sorted all this out.

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The realtor is the grown up in the relationship, and I expect much more out of her than we received.

I read a maternal undertone in her emails which likely misled the girls into trusting her to guide them through the renewal process completely and successfully.

Excerpt from another of her emails:

Gotcha.

I'll be honest, I think "We would like to renew." And the realtor responds with the rate and "Thanks!" Would probably hold up as an agreement in court, but I'm no lawyer.

Bitter Old Man said:

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cjsag94 said:

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Gotcha.

I'll be honest, I think "We would like to renew." And the realtor responds with the rate and "Thanks!" Would probably hold up as an agreement in court, but I'm no lawyer.

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No, there was no meeting of the minds, which would require something like a follow up email saying "That works for us..." If the agent's email had read: "$10,000! Thanks!" I'm pretty sure the parents wouldnt want that email to be enforceable as a lease were the shoe on the other foot.

I agree that the agent should have followed up as a professional, but they had no technical duty to do so. College kids are adults, whether they want to act like it or not. Even girls. Hiring a lawyer is just wasting your money.

I also dont think there is some commission conspiracy here. Those rental agents dont make enough on a single lease to make a difference, especially on the delta between a new or renewal, and its much easier to renew them in place and not do any work.

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First of all, there is no negotiating the new lease rate (there's a long wait list for these properties) and the girls were determined to renew and asked for the rate for completeness. It's hard for me to put a lot of weight on the idea that the leasing agent thought they were rejecting the new rate because the increase was minimal, $25/mo per roommate, less than 4%.. If it were $100 per roommate, then yes, I can see her anticipating more non renewals. In the girls' minds, they didn't need to approve the new rate, they just needed to know what it would be exactly. They already said they wanted to renew and that should have been enough to trigger an emailed renewal agreement. You and I would have obviously followed up, but we are not 21.

I think there is a stronger moral and professional failure here. The leasing agent actually puts in her emails that she wants to make sure she doesn't "give away a unit if existing tenants want to stay", but then fails to back that pledge up with action by following up when they did not respond.

I just can't understand why she would not have immediately emailed the girls a renewal agreement with the new lease rate once they stated that they wanted to renew. The girls also did not qualify their intention to renew with something like "we want to renew if the rate is not too high". In their minds, they thought that they had notified the agent that they wanted to renew.

Sadly, the standard language requiring either party to provide written notice of termination is replaced by the landlord's language placing all the onus on the tenant to communicate their desire to renew.

If Landlord or Tenant fails to provide the other party timely written notice of termination as required by paragraph 4A, the lease automatically renews on a month-to-month basis. The Landlord or Tenant then must provide a subsequent written notice of termination as required by paragraph 4B.

The standard language above is replaced by this:

If a tenant is late on her/his rent it is that tenants responsibility to pay late charges. Tenants must contact owner by 9/15/21 with intent to renew their lease, or vacate at lease end date, and to find out if the owner is willing to renew the lease at that time. Renewals must be signed by 10/1/21, or property will be advertised for pre-lease, and showings will begin. This lease will not renew on a month to month basis. Tenants at Tenants expense must have the home&carpets cleaned to a professional level upon move out. All tenants must pay their portion of rent via EFT and place maintenance requests on XYZ.com. If a paperwork change is needed there will be a $50 fee owed to XYZ Rentals. If a tenant change is requested before the lease start date, paragraph 28B for subletting will still apply. A trip charge will be charged for any additional showings after the lease has been signed. XYZ Rentals is signing this Lease as 'Landlord' with the written authorization of the property owner. Agent is authorized to execute leases in the capacity of Landlord for Owner's real property on such terms and conditions as deemed appropriate in the sole discretion of Agent.

Just seems like a very one sided, heavy handed approach to me. It will be interesting to see if TREC sees any breach of ethical or professional standards here.

Oh, and I agree with your commission conspiracy skepticism, and I have not pursued that at all.

is this leasing company run by a former wideout at tamu?

HighPriorityAg said:

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is this leasing company run by a former wideout at tamu?

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I've gone out of my way not to name names, but the realtor, her broker, and the property owner are definitely not former football players, lol.

So who's the former wideout you speak of???

Edit: My daughter is a 3rd generation Aggie. We take our Aggie football very seriously in our house.
If it's Terrence Murphy that you are thinking of, I see a professionalism in him that would preclude this from ever happening. And if it did, I bet he would make it right.

It would've taken less than a minute to send an email.

combat wombat said:

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Both sides are "at fault" for this mess. While they did tell the leasing company that they wanted to renew their lease and they requested the new rate, they did not respond in the affirmative after receiving the email with the new rate from the leasing company.
They really should have responded with something that would clearly indicate to the leasing agent that wasn't acceptable rate.

That said, the leasing agent allowed a good tenant to get away because they didn't follow through with email communication. As someone else mentioned, it may be possible that they had motives that were contrary to the best interest of the landlord.

I don't understand why a leasing agent would not go out of their way to keep a reliable tenant.

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Not only go out of their way to keep a good tenant, but also to keep those good tenants from having their home leased out from under them without their knowledge leaving them with no place to stay the upcoming year at a time when little is available on the market.

jopatura said:

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I don't think reliable tenant is on an agent's mind if they are requiring renewals 1 month into the lease.

Honestly, I would bet that the agent sees a lot of wishy washy college kids that are soft on renewing. She probably doesn't follow up on any since she would spend the bulk of her time following up on all. She can get the same outcome (leasing the unit) for half as much work.

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That's obviously why they have structured the lease as they have.

My assertion is that once the girls stated they wanted to renew their lease, they deserved to have been emailed the renewal agreement (that they were unaware they needed) regardless of their asking for the new price.

The lease, as it is structured, protects the leasing agent and landlord from wish washy college kids, at the expense of deliberate, certain, yet naive kids instead.

combat wombat said:

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Look, your daughter and her roommates just learned a valuable, if painful, life lesson. They should have confirmed the lease amount was acceptable and asked for a lease to sign. Don't count on others to take care of you. They failed at follow through. Now they know.

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Oh, believe me, my daughter heard that as soon as I found out about this.

However, the more I dug into the emails and the lease contract, the more I became unhappy with the leasing agent.

It's a big deal to lease someone's home out from under them, and I believe the agent had a professional and ethical duty to have followed up with the girls to clarify before leasing their unit.

hopeandrealchange said:

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When I have a great group of Students that are in one of my homes I bend over backwards to get them to renew.
When I have a group that are a pain in the ass that is not the case. And when this happens the parents are shocked.

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Is this EyeBalz' daughter's realtor?

Chipotlemonger said:

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hopeandrealchange said:

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When I have a great group of Students that are in one of my homes I bend over backwards to get them to renew.
When I have a group that are a pain in the ass that is not the case. And when this happens the parents are shocked.

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Is this EyeBalz' daughter's realtor?

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Absolutely not. I am not a realtor.

I misspoke. I meant to say landlord.

Chipotlemonger said:

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hopeandrealchange said:

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When I have a great group of Students that are in one of my homes I bend over backwards to get them to renew.
When I have a group that are a pain in the ass that is not the case. And when this happens the parents are shocked.

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Is this EyeBalz' daughter's realtor?

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LMAO.

Believe me, these girls are angels compared to the others on this very well known frat/sorority street.

hopeandrealchange said:

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When I have a great group of Students that are in one of my homes I bend over backwards to get them to renew.
When I have a group that are a pain in the ass that is not the case. And when this happens the parents are shocked.

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I would do the same thing, but....

These girls are model tenants.

The frat boys down the street, probably not so much.

My son graduated last year with a 4.0 and just finished his first year of med school in San Antonio.

My daughter has a 3.9+ GPA and wants to go to nursing school.

These are responsible, good girls in this house.

And I already chewed her ass for letting this happen to them, and she was not the roommate in charge of handling this.

cjsag94 said:

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Gotcha.

I'll be honest, I think "We would like to renew." And the realtor responds with the rate and "Thanks!" Would probably hold up as an agreement in court, but I'm no lawyer.

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Realtors nearly never hold decision making rights on stuff like this so not sure how you drew that conclusion.

ATM9000 said:

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cjsag94 said:

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Gotcha.

I'll be honest, I think "We would like to renew." And the realtor responds with the rate and "Thanks!" Would probably hold up as an agreement in court, but I'm no lawyer.

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Realtors nearly never hold decision making rights on stuff like this so not sure how you drew that conclusion.

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You may be technically correct, but as an agent of the owner, they are there to manage the relationship. If the owner of this property actually knows went on, maybe they told the agent to slow play because owner had other people he wanted in. Don't know why as I'm sure the owner could have simply said we aren't renewing.

More likely, the owner doesn't know, and the agent just didn't do their job very well at all. Either that, or supply and demand presented with an offer they couldn't refuse, and suddenly the agent and owner realized nothing was ever signed, so they can take the new deal. Also points to the hearing through the grapevine aspect of this.

My comment was directed towards what works a court/jury interpret the communication as. The rebuttal to me above was very valid, but I'm not in agreement with letting the realtor off as they don't make these decisions...
I think that's a moot point (communication and administrative duty of care is the issue).

I've always had to fill out a lease renewal agreement as a tenant in Texas:

http://content.har.com/FormManager/pdf/83.pdf

"We would like to renew. What's the price?" and "$3375. Thanks" doesn't seem like enough at first glance. It needs to be in (official) writing.