Can A Landlord Do This?

[Heartland Patriot]

That is what I have been wondering while reading this thread. What defines the contract as illegal?

Again IANAL, but I will give an example of an "illegal contract." Let's say I want you to kill someone so I have you sign a paper that states that you will kill a person for the sum of $10,000. You sign the contract, but don't follow through with your side of the agreement. I can not sue you for not killing the person because murder is an illegal act.

Alright, understood...that is someone wanting you to do something that is ILLEGAL. What about in the case of the firearm in the home, though? That is, someone keeping you from doing something that IS LEGAL? IANAL, either...so I just don't have enough training to be able to figure this one out...but, hey, I guess all you have to do is a be a property management company in MINNESOTA and you can call shots in Texas, huh?

[surprise_i'm_armed]

In my apartment complex, about a year ago, the maintenance man, with whom I'm chummy,
told me that he went in to prep an apartment for a new tenant and found a hole in the wall.

It lined up with the apartment across the way where a problem child (man, actually) lived.

When he dug around in the drywall, he found a 9MM bullet.

Further investigation revealed that the man across the hall was drunk one night, and was showing his 9MM
handgun to another tenant. The gun owner had his finger on the bang switch and he negligently shot 1 round.
He was kicked out by management and had to move. The office's contact at Lewisville PD found out that he had
a warrant or two for some other problems, so....good riddance to bad rubbish. :-)

Fast forward to 12/15/2012 - the apartment management hand-delivered notices to all 288 apartments that new
lease applications needed to be filled out, and a price increase was to be effective on 2/1/12.

Due to the aforementioned incident, I was really fearful that the new lease would contain an anti-gun clause.
Thankfully, there was no mention of any anti-gun policies. Whew!

SIA

[WildBill]

That is what I have been wondering while reading this thread. What defines the contract as illegal?

Again IANAL, but I will give an example of an "illegal contract." Let's say I want you to kill someone so I have you sign a paper that states that you will kill a person for the sum of $10,000. You sign the contract, but don't follow through with your side of the agreement. I can not sue you for not killing the person because murder is an illegal act.

Alright, understood...that is someone wanting you to do something that is ILLEGAL. What about in the case of the firearm in the home, though? That is, someone keeping you from doing something that IS LEGAL? IANAL, either...so I just don't have enough training to be able to figure this one out...but, hey, I guess all you have to do is a be a property management company in MINNESOTA and you can call shots in Texas, huh?

I'm getting in over my head on this topic.

[JALLEN]

That is what I have been wondering while reading this thread. What defines the contract as illegal?

Again IANAL, but I will give an example of an "illegal contract." Let's say I want you to kill someone so I have you sign a paper that states that you will kill a person for the sum of $10,000. You sign the contract, but don't follow through with your side of the agreement. I can not sue you for not killing the person because murder is an illegal act. This is a very obvious illegal contract.

Let's say that I sell you a house and tell you that you can't sell or rent the property to "black people" and you sign the contract and buy the house. If the original property owners tried to sue you at a later date for selling the property to "black people", even though you agreed to the terms of the sale, that would be an illegal contract. Again IANAL. If any lawyers want to give their opinion, please do so.

Things such as gun ownership are not so clear. I don't know if there is any case law on this subject.

Some issues are off the table, not subject to agreement between the parties. The law will not enforce provisions like that. The law and public policy restricts it. Other issues are not, and are left to the bargaining between the parties, who are not always equal in bargaining power.

Maybe the landlord decides everyone will wear little red hats while a tenant. If not, hit the road. Well, that maybe the landlord's prerogative but it will empty out his properties pretty fast. Everyone who dislikes wearing little red hats will leave and find accommodations elsewhere. Landlords can no longer require tenants of opposite gender from cohabiting, or require them to be married, or in CA, prevent them from marrying, if same gender. As long as no illegal discriminatory purpose is claimed, and no statute is involved, tenants are free to avoid that place and the landlord can be as silly as it pleases.

A tenant has certain rights under lease, usually quiet enjoyment, working utilities, healthy, sanitary, etc. Beyond that, the landlord can usually reserve such rights to enforce such rules as it pleases, apparently what is involved here. Is there a statute restricting that? An appellate case interpreting the language?

[WildBill]

That is what I have been wondering while reading this thread. What defines the contract as illegal?

Again IANAL, but I will give an example of an "illegal contract." Let's say I want you to kill someone so I have you sign a paper that states that you will kill a person for the sum of $10,000. You sign the contract, but don't follow through with your side of the agreement. I can not sue you for not killing the person because murder is an illegal act. This is a very obvious illegal contract.

Let's say that I sell you a house and tell you that you can't sell or rent the property to "black people" and you sign the contract and buy the house. If the original property owners tried to sue you at a later date for selling the property to "black people", even though you agreed to the terms of the sale, that would be an illegal contract. Again IANAL. If any lawyers want to give their opinion, please do so.

Things such as gun ownership are not so clear. I don't know if there is any case law on this subject.

Some issues are off the table, not subject to agreement between the parties. The law will not enforce provisions like that. The law and public policy restricts it. Other issues are not, and are left to the bargaining between the parties, who are not always equal in bargaining power.

Maybe the landlord decides everyone will wear little red hats while a tenant. If not, hit the road. Well, that maybe the landlord's prerogative but it will empty out his properties pretty fast. Everyone who dislikes wearing little red hats will leave and find accommodations elsewhere. Landlords can no longer require tenants of opposite gender from cohabiting, or require them to be married, or in CA, prevent them from marrying, if same gender. As long as no illegal discriminatory purpose is claimed, and no statute is involved, tenants are free to avoid that place and the landlord can be as silly as it pleases.

A tenant has certain rights under lease, usually quiet enjoyment, working utilities, healthy, sanitary, etc. Beyond that, the landlord can usually reserve such rights to enforce such rules as it pleases, apparently what is involved here. Is there a statute restricting that? An appellate case interpreting the language?

Thanks for your input.

[dac1842]

1 I don't think they can change the rules in mid stream.
2- I don't think they can enforce rules on what you can have within a residence other than items prohibited by law
3- I would have a lawyer review this just to sure.
4- I would send the corporate office a letter and let ask them what measures are they are taking to guarantee your safety. Let them know the hours you leave and return so that your personal body guard they must be providing for you is in place at the appointed times. I would also inquire as to where they plan on placing the guard shack that they must be placing in front of each apartment to insure that no apartment is burglarized.
5- Put them on notice that if any harm comes to you, your family or your guest while on the property that you could have prevented by being armed you will be suing them for failure to provide a safe and secure place to reside.
6- Ask them if they are familiar with the second amendment and what legal right do they have to deny you your constitutional rights.

I am not a lawyer, just a rebellious son of a gun.

[punkndisorderly]

Not sure if they can do this with leases, but I know with some contracts, they can add/change conditions, and you can either accept or decline, terminating the contract. For example, with a bank account, they can add fees. They make you aware of the fees, and you can either do nothing, and they become active, or decline and have a certain amount of time to close out.

If that's the case, you could get out of the lease. If you want to stay, you might try to have them add an exclusion into your lease and get a copy signed by them and you.

I'd probably just ignore it and try to keep a low profile. If you don't make an issue of it, they probably won't either. The local managers won't want the hassle of doing an eviction, having a vacancy on their reports, and have to fill it with a tenant that might cause real problems.

[rdcrags]

Great thread! Change of pace:

I might too, depending on if a friend had enough room for me and my stuff to crash for a couple weeks while looking for a new place. If so, I'd invest in a discreet tape recorder and go have a friendly chat with the new landlords. Do be careful recording phone calls, though. AFAIK it's legal if it all stays in TX, but things can get interesting if the other person is in a two-party state.

I hope it doesn't matter if the other party is out of state. For several years, I moderated a worldwide (6 countries) weekly conference call, and recorded them to help me with preparing a written summary for in-company distribution. No one but the 3 people in our conference room knew about the recordings.

[Carry-a-Kimber]

Can a landlord change the terms of a lease without consent?
NO

[Dave2]

Great thread! Change of pace:

I might too, depending on if a friend had enough room for me and my stuff to crash for a couple weeks while looking for a new place. If so, I'd invest in a discreet tape recorder and go have a friendly chat with the new landlords. Do be careful recording phone calls, though. AFAIK it's legal if it all stays in TX, but things can get interesting if the other person is in a two-party state.

I hope it doesn't matter if the other party is out of state. For several years, I moderated a worldwide (6 countries) weekly conference call, and recorded them to help me with preparing a written summary for in-company distribution. No one but the 3 people in our conference room knew about the recordings.

Some states require just one party to know, some - not having thought of conference calls - require two and only two parties, and some require all parties to know. I no longer recall how things play out if recording the call is legal where you are and not where the other guy is, but back in college when I was researching it (because of a landlord despute, oddly enough) I ended up thinking it was complicated.

Regarding recording calls in six other countries, as far as I know it's not illegal in the USA to break the law in another country. Definitely ask a lawyer about it though, because I'm certainly not qualified to give legal advice.

[sjfcontrol]

Constitutional arguments don't apply here. The only thing mentioned above that has any meaning is THAT YOU NEED TO TALK TO A LAWYER familiar with Texas tenant law. Getting legal advice from a gun forum is not a good thing.

[apostate]

4- I would send the corporate office a letter and let ask them what measures are they are taking to guarantee your safety. Let them know the hours you leave and return so that your personal body guard they must be providing for you is in place at the appointed times. I would also inquire as to where they plan on placing the guard shack that they must be placing in front of each apartment to insure that no apartment is burglarized.
5- Put them on notice that if any harm comes to you, your family or your guest while on the property that you could have prevented by being armed you will be suing them for failure to provide a safe and secure place to reside.
6- Ask them if they are familiar with the second amendment and what legal right do they have to deny you your constitutional rights.

How is this different than an employer not allowing you to carry at work?

Alternately, consider any business other than an apartment complex posting a 30.06 sign. Does that violate your constitutional rights?

[JALLEN]

Landlord can technically do anything until a judge restricts that or the AG (or other Texas Peace Officer) enforces the real estate codes (good luck).

This being a civil matter, not criminal, the AG (or other Texas peace officer) has nothing to do with enforcing the RE codes, at least to the extent that changing the provisions (not the terms) of a lease is not a crime.

I understand that the lease in question allows making rules post execution of the lease, as long as the term and cost of a lease is not affected. The question then becomes whether and to what extent a landlord can change rules.

I would venture to say that to the extent conduct affects other tenants, boisterous conduct, hours of playing loud music, overhauling cars in the parking lot, storing washing machines on the lawn, holding IDPA matches in the game room, etc., the landlord is probably OK. When it devolves into private interior matters, changing the sheets on your bed, what color toilet paper to use, requiring all tenants to brush and floss twice daily, etc., enforcement of the rules is less likely.

[TacShot]

Is the new landlord's address 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

[Jim Beaux]

I wouldnt be surprised if the apartment owner/management are gun owners themselves.

I have been a gun owner all my life & fully embrace the constitutional rights for all; but if I owned an apartment complex, I too would send a letter prohibiting firearm possession on the property. Though not legally valid, it would document my effort to maintain a safe and secure facility for the tenants. (You have to admit that idiots also own guns) I would then offer a discounted apartment to a leo with the understanding that he provide a security presence. In today's litigious world it is prudent to practice defensive law.

______________________________

Case in Point:

The bullet went through the wall and struck the victim in the groin as he lay in bed. It then grazed/furrowed the torso before striking the ribs near the heart. The bullet didnt penetrate the victim very deep & I dont remember if the bullet penetrated the heart or the ribs impacted it shocking it.

I have a little more info than what the media is reporting on this case, but cant share it. I am outraged that the shooter will probably get by with little consequence for his actions. Is it possible that the victim would have survived if the shooter had reported the incident immediately?

You can bet that there will be a civil lawsuit as a result of this shooting incident.


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