Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maryland
Will our written agreement be upheld?
Several months ago myself and two other individuals entered into a leasing agreement for an apartment. It was for a period of one year. A few months before the lease was set to expire, one roommate decided to leave. Before leaving we all sat down and wrote out a contract between ourselves. In addition to other things, it said that the rommate that was leaving early would continue to pay 1/3 of the rent each month, unless we found another roommate to take his place. This worked fine for a little while, and then this month he decided not to pay his part. The leasing office told me that our agreement is not binding and that we are still responsible for the unpaid portion even though we made our own agreement and everyone signed it. Is our agreement really meaningless, or should we be able to enforce the terms that were layed out?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Will our written agreement be upheld?
Your agreement with the fellow tenant is enforceable against him, but you should not confuse this with your direct responsibility to the landlord. When you signed the lease, each of you became responsible to the landlord for 100% of the rent on the apartment. The landlord doesn't care how the three of you allocate the rent among yourselves, and he can sue any of you or all of you to get any unpaid rent. If you think you can successfully sue the ex-roommate for his share of the rent, go to small claims court.
Re: Will our written agreement be upheld?
Your contract with the ex-roommate is enforceable but not against the landlord. Typically, a lease entitles that the
landlord has a right to payment and may collect against any one or all of those who signed the lease. Sometimes a lease is proportional to the
tenants, that is that each bears a respective share. Read your lease carefully.
Where the ex-roommate signed the lease and the landlord has a right of recovery against you (i.e., the lease in not proportional) then you can use the
lease, as signed by the ex-roommate, and your contract to pursue a 1/3 recovery in small claims court. However, small claims court may not be the appropriate jurisdiction where you
sub-let the premises, but this does not appear to be the case. Showing that he did, in fact, make some payments under the contract shows that the contract was implemented and effective and goes a long way to show that it is valid.
If the defaulting roommate never signed the lease then obviously the lease cannot be used as evidence to collect from the non-paying ex-roommate. Your contract with him can be used and be prepared to show
the payments that he did make under the contract.
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