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Deposit issue

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Dumbo12345

New member
Hi everyone,

I recently needed to move out from a house shared with 3 roomates. We were three people on the lease (cotenant) , and after many arguments and 1 month of nightmare (which I won’t give any details to make the story short) , they (landlord + roomates ) finally agreed to sign a contract releasing me from any obligation of the lease since I will be gone by erasing my name from the lease this upcoming month. I engaged myself to look for a substitute ( and also in order to get back my deposit ) but my roomates are literally giving me a hard time. They requested me to find someone who could pay more than the rent I have been paying with the justification that I was using the biggest bedroom with a private bathroom and start to give me an exaggerate estimation of the utilities, which make the total rent exorbitant for what it is. Plus, they are ignoring my request to meet any potentiels tenants and are giving me a tone of criterias that they want the new potentiel to have. On the agreement we all signed, it was stated (under their request) that if I do not find any potentiel roomate to replace me, they will not be held responsible for my security deposit. Since the lease won’t be broken as they are not leaving and I am supposed to get my deposit back from the new roomate since landlord can not touch the deposit that we all gave when moving in (unless everyone move out) , I am suspecting them on giving me a hard time purposely and planning to keep the security deposit ( which amount is HIGHER than 1 month rent I was paying as my share so they will basically make some money ) that I was supposed to get back from the new tenant. My question is : what right do i have on my security deposit even after my name is erased on the lease ? Do they have the right to take the security deposit of the new tenant that was supposed to be given to me after I am released from the lease?

Thank you...
 


quincy

Senior Member
Hi everyone,

I recently needed to move out from a house shared with 3 roomates. We were three people on the lease (cotenant) , and after many arguments and 1 month of nightmare (which I won’t give any details to make the story short) , they (landlord + roomates ) finally agreed to sign a contract releasing me from any obligation of the lease since I will be gone by erasing my name from the lease this upcoming month. I engaged myself to look for a substitute ( and also in order to get back my deposit ) but my roomates are literally giving me a hard time. They requested me to find someone who could pay more than the rent I have been paying with the justification that I was using the biggest bedroom with a private bathroom and start to give me an exaggerate estimation of the utilities, which make the total rent exorbitant for what it is. Plus, they are ignoring my request to meet any potentiels tenants and are giving me a tone of criterias that they want the new potentiel to have. On the agreement we all signed, it was stated (under their request) that if I do not find any potentiel roomate to replace me, they will not be held responsible for my security deposit. Since the lease won’t be broken as they are not leaving and I am supposed to get my deposit back from the new roomate since landlord can not touch the deposit that we all gave when moving in (unless everyone move out) , I am suspecting them on giving me a hard time purposely and planning to keep the security deposit ( which amount is HIGHER than 1 month rent I was paying as my share so they will basically make some money ) that I was supposed to get back from the new tenant. My question is : what right do i have on my security deposit even after my name is erased on the lease ? Do they have the right to take the security deposit of the new tenant that was supposed to be given to me after I am released from the lease?

Thank you...
What is the name of your state?
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Are you willing to just walk away from your deposit funds and let them deal with having to pay full rent since they are interfering with your finding a replacement tenant ? (as long as you have a copy of what was signed and it does indeed release you from the lease then let them worry about it.) BTW they cant fairly up the rent a replacement would pay , they can up the rent if they find their own replacement for you , but courts tend to not reward people who will not play fair when they try to change terms , keep the names of the prospective tenants you found , then consider never ever sharing housing again with roommates even if that meant renting tiny studio apartments instead.
 

Dumbo12345

New member
Are you willing to just walk away from your deposit funds and let them deal with having to pay full rent since they are interfering with your finding a replacement tenant ? (as long as you have a copy of what was signed and it does indeed release you from the lease then let them worry about it.) BTW they cant fairly up the rent a replacement would pay , they can up the rent if they find their own replacement for you , but courts tend to not reward people who will not play fair when they try to change terms , keep the names of the prospective tenants you found , then consider never ever sharing housing again with roommates even if that meant renting tiny studio apartments instead.
Hi thank you for your reply,

I really wish to get back my deposit because it’s amount is more than half of the total rent than the three of us pay monthly. So basically the agreement we signed specifies that my name will be erased from the lease. I already paid the rent for September in exchange for this paper to be signed and basically I am trying to find someone for October. That what I tried to explain them, that everyone would benefit from finding someone because otherwise they will end up paying the October rent just the two of them. For some reason, they keep creating difficulties since then and they told me that if I can’t find anyone by the end of this month, they will keep the futur tenant’s deposit that they will find later. Is it legal for them to process like this (to force me to give up on my deposit) ? They pretend it is because after this month, my name won’t be on the lease anymore.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
Just because your name isn't on a lease doesn't mean you cant sue them for your deposit refund , hell you could name the LL too in a civil suit (once you know a third person moves in ) and let a judge decided who is going to pay you .
 

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