Roommate Problems

[bbojovic]

My roommate subleased her room to another person this summer. When the
sublease agreement expired that person moved out without paying me any of
the utilities that she owed.

I am currently taking my roommate to court for the utilities that her
sublessee owes me. The agreement that I had with my roommate consisted of
our lease which states that we are responsible for the utilities and that
the utilities must be left on for the entire term of the lease.

My question is:
Can I sue my roommate for her sublessee's unpaid utilities? My roommate
earned $400.00 by subleasing her room for the summer while I had to pay
about $1000.00 for her sublessee's unpaid bills.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

You absolutely can sue your roomate and will win. The creation of a sublease by your roomate does not exempt him from the liabilities of his lease unless released by the lessor and, in certain circumstances, also by a co-lessee. If a sublessee breaches a term of a lease agreement, for example by damaging the walls, the lessee remains liable for the damage of the sublessee.

This is complete common sense and you should ask for damages since your roomate does not have any viable or reasonable defense and simply is forcing you to take him to court and waste your time to avoid payment. (You may not get it but you might as well ask and state why.) It's easier to illustrate the point using a loan -- If you loan a millionaire friend $10,000 at a special interest rate, why would you allow the friend to walk away from the loan by telling you that Joe Shmoe, whom you don't know and who is unemployed, is going to repay the loan? You wouldn't because you trusted your friend to repay the loan and not risk loaning your money to someone you don't know with a different credit risk. It's the same logic with a lease and your roomate cannot simply walk away from the situation stating that someone else agreed to perform his lease obligations. He signed on the dotted line and unless the interested parties let him off the hook, those parties wouldn't logically release a party they earlier deemed responsible to replace him with an unknown person.

 

[bbojovic]

Thank you for your reply. I hope that the judge see this as a buisness transaction between my old roommate and her sublesee and not hold me responsible for her sublessee's unpaid utilities.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Ahhh... a different question! The judge may see this as a business transaction to which your roomate is responsible to you for her half (as though there was no sublessee ever involved which there wasn't between you and the sublessee) but with regard to the landlord, that could be a different issue! Since you already paid the money I don't think that it will come as a surprise that if you and your roomate both were co-signers on the lease it would seem that both of you are separately responsible for the lease to the landlord. Therefore, the landlord could sue any of you for the obligations under the lease, however, each lessee would have a right to obtain the appropriate amount from the other and join that other lessee to the case.

 

[Barry39mac]

Additional Roommate Problems

I recently moved into a house with three friends. Our names are all three on the lease. The problem is that one of the roommates has decided that his girlfriend (whose name is not on the lease) will move in with us, without consulting us. We have told him that we do not want her here, but she has not made any attempts of leaving and its been three weeks. Myself and the other roommate (not in question) do not want her in our house. What can we do to prevent her from staying in our home?
Thanks, Barry

 

[freebird]

I recently moved into a house with three friends. Our names are all three on the lease. The problem is that one of the roommates has decided that his girlfriend (whose name is not on the lease) will move in with us, without consulting us. We have told him that we do not want her here, but she has not made any attempts of leaving and its been three weeks. Myself and the other roommate (not in question) do not want her in our house. What can we do to prevent her from staying in our home?
Thanks, Barry

If she is not on the lease then you can always tell them that you will raise this issue with the landlord. I doubt the landlord will be so forgiving. I also wonder whether this issue is covered in your lease agreement and will guess that it is addressed and not in the couples' favor.