Utility Allowances in Texas

My daughter lives in a house with three of her friends in Texas. My daughter has a lease that identifies her address as 504a. Her friends are on a separate lease identified address 504. Each lease has a $350 utility allowance. When the leases were signed, no one was told that there is only one meter for each of the utilities. The landlord is trying to get them to pay overages on $350 because the bills came to $460. I see the leases as being separate which would mean there is $700 available for utilities. am I right?

What does the zoning on the unit say? Is it zoned as one property, or two? If it is zoned as 2, then there should be two seperate addresses listed for the place (504 and 504a). If there is only one address listed for it, then there is only one allotment. A judge may well say that the "a" was a typo, since there is no such address.

I'm guessing (having never looked up the property) that there will be only one address. Your daughter and her 3 friends share one house, therefore there is only one meter for each utility. That is what you would expect for one unit. Had there been seperate units, the LL would have had to disclose shared utility meters. You wouldn't expect more than one meter when they are sharing a house together.

Since they share the house, they should also share in the overage. $460-$350 = $110 / 4 ways = $27.50 apiece. That little amount of money isn't worth arguing over. It would costs more than twice than amount to fight it in small claims.