Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You've got a tough situation. Technically you can give notice that your co-signature is only valid through the end of the lease, or for 30 more days if it's converted to month-to-month, but then the landlord might no longer be willing to rent to the kids and give them notice terminating their tenancies.

If the lease has not expired, you're on the hook unless the LL agrees to release you. Good luck..

Co-signing a lease probably places you in the position of being a guarantor of the tenant's obligations, not the position of a co-tenant. Therefore, I'm not sure you can wriggle out of your obligation by giving notice, as Mr. McCormick suggests. It may depend upon the wording of the co-signature terms of the lease or rental agreement.

Filing bankruptcy might be another way, but probably not worth it.

A tenant's liability for future rent due on a lease after he or she breaches and moves out is whatever the landlord is, or would be, out-of-pocket given a reasonable effort to mitigate damages by re-renting. A guarantor's obligation is also limited thusly. So, if these were long-term leases, the kids could in theory move out, the landlord would have to re-rent, and the kids and uoi would have to make up the losses during the ensuing vacancy period. This too is probably not a good real-world solution. Nevertheless, unless someone pays the rent, something resembling this is going to happen.

The reasoning is a little different if the rentals are month-to-month or leases with only a few months remaining. The kids can give notice and terminate their and your obligations on shorter notice, and the results are more predictible than breaching, moving out, and triggering mitigation of damages. Since they've been in their apartments over a year and you mention no leases, I assume these are month-to-month tenancies, at least at present.

As to the landlord releasing you from the guaranty (assuming that's what it is), think of what you would tell (for example) General Motors if, fifteen months after buying a car from them with a five-year warranty, they came to you and said, "We're having a hard time, would you release us from our warranty?"

I don't have any other recommendations except to hope that the family can hang together and cooperate in getting all the rents paid, somehow, until brighter economic times.