How can I get legal help?
Forums like this one can often provide a discussion of particular legal issues. Understand, though, that when you ask legal questions online the chances are that even if the respondent is an attorney, they are not answering as your attorney. For that, they need to have an attorney-client relationship. Without that, youre basically getting education advice and not legal advice. With that said, most states including Texas have very specific laws governing landlord tenant, tenet-tenet contracts, and other materials that relate to situations like you describe. Among the various remedies you may find quite specific laws governing what a landlord may and may not charge and how they must treat the payment. Your case is complicated a bit by the fact that is not a traditional landlord-tenant agreement, but one between roommates. For that reason, the legal issues may fall outside the laws of landlord-tenant and fall under the areas of contract or other legal areas. Hopefully, well see some other contributions that will help with the general discussion of landlord and roommate laws and protections.