MA Romate moved out before end of lease...

What is the name of your state? Massachusetts

Hi all, thank in advance for any help/advice you can provide for the following situation:

I live in an apartment with 3 (now 2) other people. The four of us signed a 1 year lease in August 2002, in January of this year one of my roomates decided that he wasn't able to save money while living in our apartment and decided to move home. We've had a hard time finding someone to fill his spot/room & now that rent time is coming up again those of us still living in the apartment don't want to end up paying his share. It's my belief that he's legally responsible to pay rent until we find someone we're willing to live with or the end of the term of the lease, whichever comes first. Is my assumption correct ? Can anyone point me in the direction of something to back that up ?

details:

1) all four of our names are on the lease and we all signed.

2) when my roomate informed the landlord he'd be moving out they said it was okay however he was responsible for rent until we found a replacement.

3) my roomate did find one person willing to move in, however my other two roomates didn't think they'd be able to live with that person.

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Basically I just want to be sure that I'm in the right and that me & my remaining roomates would win if we're forced to drag this into small claims court. Thanks again for any advice - Steve

[FarmerJ]

The 3 of you pay the next months rent and look for your own replacement tenant too because you have a duty to help mitigate the loss of his rent so If say it took total of 6weeks to get a replacement roomie . Then the old roomie owes 6weeks of rent . Send old roomie letter using certificate of mailing telling him you found a replacement tenant and he owes 6 weeks of rent . If you dont hear back after a week or two ? The 3 of you file one claim in small claim court for 6 weeks of rent against former roomie and court filing cost If he doesnt pay .

thanks for the response. with any luck he'll exit his current state of denial about a lease being a legal document and just pay his share without it getting ugly. does he have any obligation with reguards to splitting the cost of finding said new roomie ? we've signed up for two different pay-to-list/look services as we try to fill the void & it'd be nice to have him chip in. oh well, thanks again - Steve