Q&A: can someone rent property that is not in their name?

Question by Amanda: can someone rent property that is not in their name?
i recently rented a house from “jane doe” and after i decided to move because after 3 months she hadn’t fixed the roof, i read the local paper and saw that the property i was renting wasnt in her name, it was in her fathers name who died in 2005, and he didnt have a will, and because her and her sister whom died in 2009 could never come to an agreement, the property has never been settled through probate. to make matters worse she is trying to sue me for carpet cleaning where the roof leaked and 3 months rent, that i paid, but she never signed her name to the receipts, she just wrote “landlady”. and on the lease she has it as ” doe properties” and even though i signed, she didnt, and it was never notarized and on the bottom of every page it says “sample document” , and even though i’ve been served with papers yesterday that she is suing me,, i’ve been moved out of the house for over a month.my reciepts are in storage along with all my other belongings, but i have text messages where i asked for copies of the receipts , and her reply was i shouldnt have lost mine, according to the magistrate court i can use txt msgs as evidence in court, and the only paperwork that has her name on it is where she filed the claim,,, the lease nor the receipts have her name on them anywhere. on the lease where it says owner/agent she has her last name and properties, ie: instead of having “Jane Doe” she has “Doe Properties”,,,,and she never signed it,, and i didnt recieve a copy of it until i started moving out. the property is being forclosed on and is up for public auction feb.1st. the advice from the court was to stay there until she served us with an eviction notice so that by her not fixing the roof then she would be the one whom broke contract,but me and my husband have an 8yr old, a 4 yr old, and a baby due in april and the leaky roof got so bad that is caused it to be unsafe to live in. after finding out that it was being forclosed on, i got in touch with her neice who by law is entitled to her moms(the landladys sister) half of the property and aparently they have had a family feud over the property for years, and thats why it never got settled in probate, that and the landlady didnt want it legally in her name because she has filed bankruptcy 3 times since her father died and this way she didnt have to claim the property in her bankruptcys. the only thing we are counter suing for is our deposit, because other than the roof that she didnt fix, we left the house in the same condition that we got it.

Best answer:

Answer by Landlord
The courts are handing out bad advice? Advice at all? It is not legal for them to do so.

Anyway, yes, she can rent the house while it is in probate, that is not a problem.

She does not have to fix the roof.

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