Hello,

I have a scenario and a question. My mother and I wanted to open up a restaurant. She found a location and we met with the owner. We went over the site and he spoke to us about the deposit and first and last month's rent. $1000 deposit and $5000 (1st and Last Rent). We agreed to take it, verbally.

We met with him on July 4th, gave him a cashier's check for $500 and we told him that we would give him the remainder of the deposit on July 15th. This was done verbally and with the cashier's check.

My mother met with the owner and picked up the keys on July 7th. On July 12th, unfortunately, our financing source passed away. I called the owner, told him about our delimma and he said that he understood. I asked him if he could return the deposit to us and he stated that he could not, that he has been out of too much money trying to help us, that he has missed two other offers and that he couldn't do it. This was all done verbally.

My question is, are we entitled to a partial amount of the deposit for the time we had the keys until the time we returned the keys to him or are we just out of $500? Please advise. Thanks

Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.

See also: http://resources.lawinfo.com/Search....tateName:Texas