Bringing a case against my mother

[Spazheart]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Connecticut

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Connecticut

At 20 I moved back in with my mother. She is horrible with finances and decision making in general. I had really good credit and a good job and she needed me to help her and be the main one on the lease. She paid the rent for the most part and I paid the utilities including our phones and groceries. Everything was fine until we all needed to move back to virginia where we're from. I will say I was really dumb and naive about a lot. I didn't look into things, didn't get things in writing when I should have. We needed to end our lease early and my mom had said she spoke with them and they said it was fine. So my mom moved out. I moved out about two weeks after.


A year later I get a letter in the mail saying I'm being taken to court for $3000 from the apartments. I asked my mom about it she said she knew nothing. So i called and they said there was unpaid rent. Several months apparently. Part of that was our broken lease. I guess in Connecticut you cannot break your lease. So they were suing us for the time that was left. And they were claiming there were two additional months that were partially or not paid. I asked my mom and she said they were lying and she had proof that the landlord said leaving early would be fine. Never saw it. The landlord was crap and I know they had a lot of issues raised against them and not long after lost ownership of those apartments. So I struggled with how to pay it. I literally could not afford that much money and I was also angry. They suggested I find a family member to borrow it from and they would cut me a deal. (Are they not getting what my family is like???) Even though I did sign it with her I couldn't get over that I would end up being the only one paying it. Well just recently she told me that she really hadn't paid all of the rent those last two months we lived there.

What I'm wondering is if there is anything I can do about my ownership of it. I feel like it's just a life lesson I'm going to end up having to deal with. But someone suggested I can claim some kind of influence from my mom? At first I ignored it because I mean it's my mom. But she hasn't changed and more stuff has happened and I don't care anymore. I wish I had asked more about what they were talking about. I'm asking here to see if anyone would know.

 

[quincy]

Because your signature is on the lease, you are responsible for the rent still owing the landlord. Because you rented the property with your mother, knowing your mother is financially irresponsible, you were a bit irresponsible yourself to trust her with making the rent payments. I am sure you realize that now.

I suggest you find out from the landlord what sort of "deal" s/he is willing to offer you to satisfy the contract breach and then take the landlord's advice to borrow money to pay the landlord, this before the landlord sues to recover the amount owed.

You are an adult so you cannot claim with any chance of success that you were "unduly influenced" by your mom. You entered the agreement with the landlord knowing who you would be rooming with and what you could expect.

Sorry. Good luck.

 

[FarmerJ]

Once its paid off your options are to sue her for her half or to live with it and not sue and tell her that you think her leaving this financial mess to you and lying about it means she cant be trusted ever again. so you know your not alone and it would not hurt you to learn if your mom ever used your name as a minor for any thing and didn't pay it, it would really suck to rent somewhere some day and find out that your name & SSN was used 7 years ago with abc electric co-op by her.