Help! Crazy tenant, need Austin lawyer recommendation if possible.
We have had a tenant in a SF rental for the past 5 months. We realized about a month after he moved in that he was going to be a problem to deal with so we immediately hired a prop manager so that we could be taken out of the equation. This was especially important to us because this house happens to be two doors down from our residence and we didn't want to spoil neighborly relations.
A few days ago, we started getting texts from the girlfriend (who is also on the lease but doesn't love there...) saying they wanted to meet with us to come to an agreement on breaking the lease. I advised her that everything was to go through property management. That didn't go over well, but her boyfriend is a bully and I didn't want to get bullied into an agreement that wasn't fair to us, hence why I hired prop management.
They want to break lease with 60 day notice with no penalty. The reasons for breaking lease are related to maintenance issues which they didn't feel were addressed in a timely manner. The claims are pretty bogus and I have documentation from the PM to dispute their claims. I countered that we would give them 60 days and their deposit back, but they needed to pay a one month penalty. They were not at all happy with that.
Long story short, the guy made a threatening remark to the PM today and so the management company just advised me that they are unable to effectively manage this situation and are pretty much hanging us out to dry with a very difficult tenant.
I could bore you all with a bunch of particulars, but the main thing I need right now is a good Austin RE lawyer to aid us in getting this jerk out of our property without him damaging it. One of the worst parts is that my husband just got laid off last week and this is the worst possible time to have vacancy and lawyer fees!
On top of needing a lawyer, I kinda also need a hug right now, and a virtual one will do:)