Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

My college-student daughter is one of four tenants on a two-bedroom apartment in west Los Angeles, two in each bedroom. She legally secured a subtenant for one semester in order to go to Europe on a student exchange program and retain the apartment for her return. The subtenant confessed to credit card fraud against her roommate (one of the four tenants) and was arrested on a misdemeanor charge, but was not jailed (she has a court date in December). The remaining three tenants (minus my daughter, still in Europe) plus the landlord requested the subtenant to leave immediately and she agreed. They all signed an agreement to that effect. My daughter as tenant had paid all she would owe to the landlord in advance. Now this subtenant is being kicked out by the other tenants, and my daughter will be out two months' rent as a result. Does my daughter as tenant have the right to collect those two months' rent from the subtenant? Can she at least keep the security deposit (equivalent to one month's rent)? Can she ask the other tenants to help make up her loss? The sublease was signed by both my daughter and her subtenant, and states the monthly and total amounts the subtenant was expected to pay. To put it simply, what rights does my daughter have to recover lost rent brought on by the subtenant being kicked out by the other tenants due to the subtenant's (non-violent) criminal action against one of the other tenants? Note that the roommate who was the victim of the subtenant's fraud has refused to enter the apartment until the subtenant is gone, and her father threatened the landlady with a document accusing her of failing to provide a safe environment for his tenant daughter by not legally evicting the subtenant and changing the locks immediately. Complicated! Thanks! -Priscilla


Asked on 11/03/10, 3:44 pm

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