Apartment roommates often disagree and sometimes they disagree so much that one of them wants to get out of their lease. Here’s how to do that the right way.
Most co-tenants almost never sign any written agreement spelling out their obligations to each other as co-tenants. They almost always do, however, sign a legally-binding, written lease spelling out their responsibilities to their landlord. Such a lease usually says:
- This lease is for a one-year term, which, unless the co-tenants both renew the lease for an additional longer term, subsequently automatically converts to a month-to-month lease.
- This lease requires (depending on your lease) a one-month or two-month notice of termination.
- Both tenants are jointly and severally liable to pay all rent as it comes due. This means, if your roommate does not pay your roommate’s share of the rent, then you are responsible to pay it for your roommate and recover it from your roommate yourself.
- No roommate substitutions are allowed unless they are agreed to in writing by the substituting roommate, the leaving roommate, and the staying roommate, and the landlord.
This does NOT mean, however, that you cannot quit renting the apartment without your roommate’s consent.
If one roommate wants out of the lease during the initial one-year term, then the vacating roommate has to work out a resolution with the remaining roommate, which will require either finding a substituting roommate who is acceptable to the remaining roommate and the landlord. If the vacating roommate cannot do this, then the vacating roommate will have to continue paying his or her half of the rent for the initial term and give notice of termination of the lease in accordance with the lease requirements. If the
Do this to get out of your subsequent month-to-month lease.
If one roommate wants out of the lease during the subsequent month-to-month lease, then all the vacating roommate has to do is give both the remaining roommate and the landlord a written termination notice, sent via certified mail, return receipt requested, stating the vacating roommate thereby terminates the month-to-month rental agreement, effective the end of the required termination period, intends to pay the vacating roommate’s share of all rent up to the end of the termination period as it becomes due, and intends to vacate the apartment prior to or on the last date of the termination period.
You are in control; not your roommate.
Oftentimes, a remaining roommate will spitefully contend, “We have a lease, you can’t terminate our lease without my consent, and you can’t quit paying your share of the rent unless I consent.”
If the co-tenants are in a subsequent month-to-month tenancy, in every state where I’ve researched it, nothing could be further from the truth. As one wise New York state appellate court judge said:
[I]f two friends, who sign a two-year lease for an apartment, discover that they are good friends but unsuitable roommates, the one who remains in the apartment cannot sue the friend who has moved out for half the rent. … [A]ny obligation to pay rent to the lessee in possession in such instances must arise from an agreement, external to the lease, between the co-tenants.
…
A lease governs the rights and duties of the landlord to the tenants and of the tenants to the landlord. It does not govern the rights and obligations of the co-tenants to each other, and any presumption that arises by virtue of the status of tenants in common is rebuttable.
Marks v. Macchiarola, 612 N.Y.S.2d 405, 204 A.D.2d 221 (N.Y. App. Div., 1994)
If they have not entered into a written agreement to the contrary, two roommates signing a lease like the one described above only have an oral agreement to be jointly and severally liable for the first year’s rent and for any subsequent month-to-month rent that comes due prior to a valid termination of the agreement. Such an oral agreement is terminable with oral notice, but written notice is almost always better.
The best thing two roommates can do to maintain a cordial relationship is to complete and sign a Roommate Agreement like this one. You can read this agreement on our website, but you cannot change or print this version. Send us an email and ask us to send you one you can use for free and we will throw in a free consultation to go with it.
If you have any questions about this or any other LifeCycle event, please feel free to call me at 410-525-3476.