Your Legal Questions: October 20, 2026

Time to answer some of your legal questions. We turn to Fox 26 Senior Legal Analyst, Chris Tritico. Good morning to you, sir. Good morning. First question is from Elisa. She says, in October of 2025, I scheduled a routine office visit with the National Dental Office in Dayton. I went for a cleaning and was told I would need a root canal. When I went for the appointment, the regular dentist was not there. The replacement dentist had problems with the staff, and it took eight hours to do the procedure. They had to take five impressions of my mouth. And since then, I have had four crowns made. And now the dentist who works there is refusing to put the new crown in because he did not do the previous work. I've been in constant pain for over a year. What can I do? Well, Alyssa, you shouldn't have been treated this way. And I don't know why the replacement dentist couldn't get the job done in the first place. This clearly looks like to me a dental malpractice issue that's going on with this national dental office who couldn't get their their business together in the first place you need to seek out the lawyer of your choice who can look over all of this mess that's going on with with what happened with your mouth okay i don't know what it is i don't know what happened but somebody needs to look over this this issue and find out what happened with you okay i'm not sure what it is but you have a problem with that dental office, and you have a problem with this last dentist who's refusing to work on you, you can file a complaint with him with the dental board, and I would do that. But seek out the lawyer of your choice and look at this immediately. Good luck. All right, our next question is from Ray Janelle, who writes, I live in an HOA restricted neighborhood. I have revived or received several HOA violations through my landlord, though, when the company lost violations, the online portal there is never any proof because of my lease. I pay the fees to avoid eviction. However, when I called my HOA directly, I was told they do not have existing violations for my residents. I called on many occasions and they keep referring me back to the HOA. No one can provide me with any proof that I have any violations. The fees are automatically added to my lease payment, so I cannot take it out. Do I have any legal action not to pay anything until I actually hear from them? So from what I understand, I think it's a few grammatical issues. She's getting violations, but there's no proof that she has the right So they lost the violations, and now she's getting dinged by her leaseholder, but they don't have any proof of it. So what I would do, Reginelle, is get with the HOA and get them to send you a letter or an email that says you are clear that there are no violations, you owe no money, and you're clear. Take that to your landlord and say, here, clear me up. Here it is. Here's proof. I owe nothing. I have no violations. I owe no money. So clear that off of my account now because it's all clear. so clear it off my account and don't don't ding me on my lease anymore that should take care of the problem if they refuse to do that then i think it's time for you to seek out someone to help you with this because you don't owe that money okay and your landlord should not be dinging you for something that you legally do not owe that's the issue here all right it's a problem between your landlord and the HOA not a problem for you because you didn't do it. So start with the HOA. See if they'll send you something that says you don't owe any violation money. And then see if your landlord will then clear it up. Good luck. Got it. All right. Thanks, Chris. If you do want to send us your legal questions, you can always do that. Just head to our website, fox26houston.com. You'll see Chris's segments right there under the morning news tab. And as always, for specific information and advice, contact an attorney of your choice.