Room mate trying to leave me with her part of the lease

[o0legos0o]

In may I began renting a house with 2 other people. One being my girlfriend and the other, a friend of hers. We agreed to lease the house for a full year. The terms of our agreement were that I would pay $600 every month and my girlfriend's friend would pay $250 every month for a total of $850 each month. We also agreed that utility bills would be split with my girlfriend and I paying 2/3rds and her friend paying 1/3 every month.

The land lord gave us a lease agreement with all three of our names on it which we never signed, but all of us verbally agreed to lease the house for a full year under the conditions of the lease.
Now my girlfriend and her friend have had a falling out and the friend is claiming that she will move out in less than a week. She is refusing to pay rent or utilities for the rest of the lease and is trying to leave me with the house and utility payments.

Do I have a verbal contract with this girl that will hold up in small claims court, and can I sue her for the remaining payments that she owes for our lease?

 

[Duranie]

You can certainly try to sue her. Verbal agreements can hold up in court. However you are also required to mitigate your damages, meaning, look for another roommate to replace her. You can ask for 1/3 of the utilities for the time she was there but since there is no written lease, it is going to be hard for you to get any future bills from her but you can ask. Seems like it will not be hard for her to pay 1/3 of the utilities from the time she was there.