Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: roommate rights

It depends upon what you mean by "legal." It is not illegal to make ridiculous demands on someone else. In that sense, what your roomie is doing is perfectly legal. She won't be sent to jail, nor can you sue her, for making this demand.

On the other hand, if you mean, "Can she enforce this demand on me?" I'd say maybe, maybe not. To expand on this: I don't see any way you are liable to her to pay or reimburse the fingerprinting and background check costs. On the other hand, if your relationship as roommates is "at will" and you do not have a lease or contract, very possibly one of you can force the other to move for this reason or any other reason, or for no reason at all. This would be the case if one of you is in contract with the landlord, and the other is an at-will or month-to-month subtenant. If you are the tenant and your roommate is your subtenant, and she has no lease, you have the power to decide who stays and who goes as a result of any dispute between you; but if the situation is the reverse, your roommate will have the effective power to kick you out over this dispute or almost any other dispute.

To be complete, I should add that terminating a tenancy for a bad reason such as retaliation or discrimination is usually not legal, even when the tenancy could be terminated for a good reason or for no reason.