Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Texas

Tenat Landlord dispute

Kara, Sally, and Martha share an apartment. Kara is the daughter of the landlord. Each person has their own bedroom. The internet comes into Martha's closet which you have to go into Martha's room to get to. Sally has an expensive wireless router/server (its a full desktop computer that acts as both a router and a home server) which is set up in Martha's closet. Sally and Kara have been having roommate problems and the landlord sides with his daughter on every dispute. Martha moves out before the lease is up (she graduated) and is working to find a sub-leaser but has not done so yet. Sally has had enough and now only sleeps at the apartment. Sally wants her server back to place it at her boyfriend's house were she now spends most of her time. However, Kara and the landlord will not let Sally into Martha's room to retrieve her property and said that Sally needs to get Martha's permission to enter. The landlord will not give the contact information of Martha to Sally. Several emails have been sent to Martha without a response. Kara has now logged into the server and changed the settings so Sally can no longer access the internet or her server at the apartment. What can be done to get Sally's server back?


Asked on 1/18/09, 5:28 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Kenneth Pitzner The Law Office of Kenneth R. Pitzner

Re: Tenat Landlord dispute

In order to answer the question, one would need to know whether the lease that Sally entered into was with all 3 girls as cotenants for the entire property, or did each girl sign a lease for their own room with a shared common area? Who put the lock on Martha's door and when would also be relevant (ie was the door lockable when the computer was put into the closet, and was it normally locked)?

Notwithstanding the foregoing, I would tend to think that were someone to simply call the police sometime when Kara and Sally were both at the apartment, and make a theft complaint regarding the computer, that the likely result would be a visit by a couple of Officers who would probably solve this problem by suggesting that Kara open the door and allow Sally to retrieve her computer, despite what the actual legal rights or wrongs of the situation might be.

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Answered on 1/21/09, 10:28 pm


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