alexander468
Active Member
What is the name of your state? Massachusetts
I am the sole lessee on the lease. The lease includes the added statement: "lessee to submit credit application to lessor or to lessor's agent for any roommate considered for occupancy" in addition to the boilerplate ban on subletting without the landlord's permission.
For my first lease in 2008, I split the moving-in costs of last-month's rent and security (total of two months rent) with my first roommate who knew he would be leaving before the end of the first year. I've asked all subsequent roommates to pay me half of last month's rent and half of the security in addition to half of the first month's rent as moving-in costs. I've had roommate agreements resembling the equivalent of a month-by-month subtenancy-at-will with multiple people over the past ten years. I've always submitted their credit application to the landlord's agent during that time, and I've returned all roommates' security deposits.
This paragraph can most likely be neglected from a legal standpoint. I was laid off in 2009, my subsequent income has not kept up with rent increases, I've accrued debt, and I'm no longer able to afford the apartment without a roommate. Yes, when these circumstances changed, that was the time I should have not signed next year's lease and moved into a cheaper apartment. But hope springs eternal that next year will provide more income than last year...and it often has in the past.
My most recent roommate chose the inopportune month of April as his last month, I was unable to find a replacement before May 1, and I was unable to pay rent on May 1. A potential roommate submitted his credit application on May 7 for a moving-in-date in mid-May, and he was approved to occupy the apartment but only under the condition that he pay no funds to me either for moving-in costs or for May rent and that all rent for both of us must now come from him. This demand was not given to my potential roommate in the context of him taking over my lease, and the demand seems to be in violation of the lease which says that rent will be paid by me...which of course, for May, it hasn't.
When the potential incoming roommate asked me why this demand was being placed on him, I informed him that May 1 rent was unpaid, and, of course, he changed his mind about living here. Doesn't the landlord have a duty to try to mitigate damages I've caused through late rent payment by approving a roommate in the way we've done it before? Or does the landlord have a greater duty to the incoming roommate to protect him from a temporarily deadbeat leaseholder?
I am the sole lessee on the lease. The lease includes the added statement: "lessee to submit credit application to lessor or to lessor's agent for any roommate considered for occupancy" in addition to the boilerplate ban on subletting without the landlord's permission.
For my first lease in 2008, I split the moving-in costs of last-month's rent and security (total of two months rent) with my first roommate who knew he would be leaving before the end of the first year. I've asked all subsequent roommates to pay me half of last month's rent and half of the security in addition to half of the first month's rent as moving-in costs. I've had roommate agreements resembling the equivalent of a month-by-month subtenancy-at-will with multiple people over the past ten years. I've always submitted their credit application to the landlord's agent during that time, and I've returned all roommates' security deposits.
This paragraph can most likely be neglected from a legal standpoint. I was laid off in 2009, my subsequent income has not kept up with rent increases, I've accrued debt, and I'm no longer able to afford the apartment without a roommate. Yes, when these circumstances changed, that was the time I should have not signed next year's lease and moved into a cheaper apartment. But hope springs eternal that next year will provide more income than last year...and it often has in the past.
My most recent roommate chose the inopportune month of April as his last month, I was unable to find a replacement before May 1, and I was unable to pay rent on May 1. A potential roommate submitted his credit application on May 7 for a moving-in-date in mid-May, and he was approved to occupy the apartment but only under the condition that he pay no funds to me either for moving-in costs or for May rent and that all rent for both of us must now come from him. This demand was not given to my potential roommate in the context of him taking over my lease, and the demand seems to be in violation of the lease which says that rent will be paid by me...which of course, for May, it hasn't.
When the potential incoming roommate asked me why this demand was being placed on him, I informed him that May 1 rent was unpaid, and, of course, he changed his mind about living here. Doesn't the landlord have a duty to try to mitigate damages I've caused through late rent payment by approving a roommate in the way we've done it before? Or does the landlord have a greater duty to the incoming roommate to protect him from a temporarily deadbeat leaseholder?
