I thought my lease was renewed

My lease expires in 2/06, we have a rental home managed by a property management company. The beginning of Jan I called the property management and said "I know the owner would like to sell am I going to be able to renew my lease" I was told YES that investors like properties with tennants. We went down and we signed a lease renewal that stated our new rent increase rate the the start and end date of our new lease. We were told we are all set. I since received a call from a realtor who wanted to show the house. We were not told it was back on the market (it fell our of escrow and was taken off the market in the fall) She also told me that the listing said that my lease was up in 2006. I called the property management company and the spoke with the girl who had done our lease renewal and she was as surprised as us and said she would check with the broker and call back. When I didn't hear from her I called again and was told they would call me back before the end of the day. The next day we called again and were told they still don't know and would call us back that afternoon, they never did. By the way, they are the listing agent on the home. I called again the following morning the girl who did our lease would not get on the phone with me but gave me a message through the receptionist that the house was for sale and they will not renew our lease at this time. They will give us notice of 30 days if they are not going to renew.

She obviously knows that what she did was wrong or she would speak with me on the phone. When she told me that I could renew it was her professional responsibility to check this with the owner. When she had me sign the lease renewal form it should have been approved by the owner and when she told me we were all set I could only assume we were. I do not know if they signed our lease renewal or not and I am sure they will never tell me. The copy I have does not have there signature.

My question is do I have any legal recourse. Do I have a verbal or implied contract? Were they negligent in the way they handled my lease renewal? Were they wrong to mislead me on the availability of this property?

If they had just been honest with me and said "oops we made a mistake" and tried to work something out with me even with another property I would have been fine. They won't take my call (and I have been nothing but nice). We have never been late with our rent, never had any complaints. I feel I am being backed into a corner to seek legal advice and possible representation.

Any suggestions?

While I'm sure you're disappointed right now in the treatment you received from your residence's management company, there appears to be little ground on which you have any legal entitlement beyond what you have already received. Since you are leasing your home, your management group and the property owner have the right to accept or decline a renewal (provided that all is in accordance with Equal Housing Opportunity standards, as applicable). Assuming the owner did not sign the lease renewal, you have no new contract. Furthermore, there is hardly such a thing as a "verbal" or "implied" contract, especially when that "contract" is executed by someone who is not legally authorized to make such an execution (i.e., the property owner --- not the management company --- has the final say). Unless you made payments for your rent beyond February 2006 (in which case, you would have made payments for a contract that doesn't exist), there are zero damages you can seek.

However, there is a *slight* possibility that you will be able to maintain your home. If your property is being sold to a property investor with the intention to sublet (versus reside in) the residence, you will most likely be welcome to stay where you are, provided that you accept a different lease potentially from a different management group than the one you have been going through to date. Of course, if you have the means, you can investigate the possibility of buying the home yourself. Inquire to your bank about mortgage eligibility to see if this might be feasible...

Hope this helps!

Brad