Broke lease early – legal recourse

By Jen

Any help would be appreciated.

I broke my lease early with my landlord of 2 years, because the house was in ill condition, and was almost impossible to heat over the winter months.  I did find someone else to rent it from them, however the landlord explained to the interested party that they could not move in to the home until my lease was up.  They proceeded to change the locks on the home, before I was able to vacate all of my belongings.  I received a letter from an attorney’s office in the mail today that stated they would file a small claims suit against me for the remaining 3 months of rent and heating costs through the winter months, if I did not contact the office in a reasonble amount of time. 

As I understand it, this is a home owned on an IRA.  The landlord insisted that I did not file taxes for the rental (which I did anyways), and also had a major issue with me receiving any mail to the address, asking me to get a PO box.  The landlord also demanded that rent be paid by cash or money order only to them personally, although I have never had any issues with bounced checks.  No rent receipts were ever given to me for the monies that I paid.  In all they received $11,000 in rent from me for 2 years, which I have no proff of becasue of the lack of receipts and no cancelled checks.

How can I get out of this mess?

Thanks

Related posts:

Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(