A first-time home owner posted a viral TikTok after buying a house in Texas and finding it had an undisclosed existing lease. She asks viewers what steps she should take next.
McCayleigh Daniels (@mccayleighdaniels) posted the video on July 30. In the caption, she writes, “I bought a house in Texas with an undisclosed existing lease. What now?”
To begin, Daniels asks in an on-screen text overlay: “Has this ever happened to anyone else?”
An email ‘from strangers’
She then shows a screenshot of an email she received “from strangers.” To add context, Daniels tells viewers that her mom, a realtor with 20 years of experience, said she has never seen an email like this before. Asking Google for help was not useful either.
“Backstory,” she says, “I’ve been living at the current property I’ve been at for two years now.”
Daniels adds a caption to her video that clarifies that she and her boyfriend have now owned the property for a month, but had been renting for the past 2 years.
“Well, a few days ago we got an email from these strangers,” she explains. For video purposes, Daniels blocked out names and addresses in the screenshotted picture of the email she received.
She reads, “I’m reaching out regarding the property you purchased … my S.O and I viewed this house in February 2024 and signed a lease on February 15th with our previous owners ”
“We were shocked to read that last week (7/17) that the property was sold,” she continued. “After reaching out to the previous owner, she tried to inform us that the lease was canceled due to the sale.”
Someone already leasing the house?
Daniels pauses before saying, “From my knowledge, based on leases and everything I found on Google, leases do not get canceled just because you sold a house to someone else.”
Referring back to the email, Daniels says she doesn’t know what source the sender got their information from. The email reads, “Leases can not be canceled unilaterally this way.”
“Under the law, the lease contract would follow the property to the new owner,” she says. If this information from the email is accurate, Daniels and her boyfriend Cristian would be the new landlords of the property.
She continues reading the email. It states, “Our contract legally entitles us to move into your house on 8/7. That being said, our first choice is not to pursue legal action in an attempt to move into your home.”
An ‘uncomfortable and messy’ situation
Daniels says this was her first time hearing about a lease. “We have a title policy, we did our lender,” she explains.
She insists that the previous owner never told about a lease on her home. “I feel like that should be the previous owner’s job to like to write on the contract, hey, there’s a lease on this property!” she says.
Daniels refers back to the email. It reads, “We believe that the previous owners have put us in an uncomfortable and messy situation. Will you help us resolve this so we don’t have to take legal action?”
The TikToker’s response
According to Daniels, she told the email writer that she didn’t know of any lease on the property.
“If we had known we would have never bought the property because we plan on living here,” she adds. She told the person she lived in the property for 2 years and purchased the house directly from the previous owners.
“There was never any documentation disclosing a lease existing for the property upon closing on the home,” Daniels continues.
She says she isn’t sure what to say next, but “they need to know that it was not disclosed to us that you had a lease for this property when we bought the home.”
“I don’t wanna be booted out of my home come August 7th,” she adds.
Daniels inserts one more photo of an email thread between herself and the lease-signers. “He kept asking me questions. And I was trying to be like really polite, like ‘I hope you get this resolved with the previous owners, because I can’t help you anymore,’” she says.
Viewers weigh in on the situation
“Since you’re bringing legal action into it all, like that’s a little scary to me,” she adds. “Where do you go from here?”
The video has amassed more than 950,000 views. In the comments, viewers offered advice.
One user suggested Daniels stop communicating with the lease-signers. “Nooooo involve a lawyer all day. Stop communicating until you have representation. I know it feels expensive but it’s worth it to save your house,” they wrote.
“It’s highly likely that they’re trying to scam you in some way. I would def present this to a lawyer, but if the lease wasn’t part of the contract you signed, you are not responsible for it,” another user said.
“Do not email them anymore. Do not respond,” another adds. “Contact your realtor, title company, and a lawyer.”
If you suspect fraud or become a victim of a rental scam, contact the FTC immediately. Report rental scams and any other kinds of fraud on the FTC website at reportfraud.ftc.gov.
@mccayleighdaniels I bought a house in Texas with an undisclosed existing lease. What now? #greenscreen #homeowner #nightmare #firsttimehomeowner #homeownernightmare #scary #homeowner #lease #landlord #previoushomeowner #landlordspecial #nowwhat #storytime #tiktokstorytime #story #scarystory #landlordstory #unfair #unfairstory #awkward #awkwardposition #landlordnightmare #titlecompany #lawyer #attorney #attorneyhelp #lawerhelp #barbietok #barbie #barbietiktok #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #viral #fy #trending# #tiktok #texas #texasproblems #usa ♬ original sound – McCayleigh Daniels
The Daily Dot reached out to request a comment from Daniels via TikTok comment section and direct message.
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