Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in District of Columbia

I am currently entered into a 9 month lease which ends May 14th. I lived with 3 other people who split the cost of rent equaly which came to a total of $826 per person. We are all college students and over Christmas break two of the people living in the apartment decided to move out with each other and gave myself and my other room mate notice the day they needed us to sign the release papers for them. They informed us they had found two new people to replace them on the lease and that one would be moving in right away, and the other would be moving in, in late January. It turned out that the person who would be moving in late January never handed in her application, and the other new tenant who moved in decided to leave since their was not a 4th person. The apartment building is still holding all four original signees on the lease responsible, this includes the two who moved out, who now find themselves responsible for two leases. Come February when the rent is due, and probably will not be paid by the two who have left, and our apartment complex sues us, who will they come after for the money? I myself have a personal brokerage account, and am afraid that since I have the most money of any of the four other room mates that I will suffer the greatest loss. Will the courts determine we all have to pay an equal amount, or only the person who has the ability to pay. Also if we abandon the apartment and do not pay the rent will this hurt my credit score as much as an eviction? Also no co-signers are present on the lease, it is only my name and the three other students, no parents.


Asked on 1/27/10, 10:25 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

Yes, the four orignal signers of your lease are what the law calls "jointly and severally liable"-- for the "whole enchilada", aka the lease, so to speak. That means that your landlord could get it all from you(the unpaid rents), if necessary, and then your recourse would be to sue the others for reimbursement(contribution).

And, no, the court will not order each of you if sued to pay equal amounts (due to the joint and several liability), and your credit score would likely be subject to roughly the same damage whether you're evicted or you abandon the premises, once a judgment is entered against you.

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Answered on 2/01/10, 1:50 pm


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