Know Your Roommates

YOU AND YOUR ROOMMATE(S) WILL BE LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH OTHER'S PAYMENT OF RENT. YOU CAN ALSO EXPECT TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH OTHER'S PAYMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITY BILLS.

The actual circumstances of a conflict between you will not change this fact. Even if you are right and your roommate is wrong, you will still have to pay his or her share of the rent if your roommate does not pay.

From the landlord's point of view, the house or apartment is rented to one household. Its up to you, the members of the household, to work out the details of dividing bills.

If one of you fails to pay the rent, the landlord can, and usually will, sue all of you. If the person who did not pay leaves, the roommates who paid their rent will face a lawsuit for eviction. Even if the landlord does not evict, expect that all of the roommates, including the one who left, will have the bad debt listed on their credit records. Very few landlords anywhere in the United States will rent to you if your credit record shows that you owe a landlord rent.

This may not sound fair, but that's the way it is, so you must choose roommates wisely. Do not just consider how well you get along -- although that is very important. You must also evaluate a roommate's financial responsibility.

Questions to ask each other before you decide to rent an apartment together:

1. Is it possible that any of your potential roommates might study abroad next year or graduate in December or leave for student teaching or engineering co-op? Discuss this before you sign a lease together.

Are you confident that each of your potential roommates would continue to pay his or her share of the rent if a replacement tenant cannot be found? Don't assume that the replacement tenant will be someone you know. If you find one at all, it will probably be a stranger. Please know that it is very, very hard to find replacement tenants.

2. If a roommate does not come back to school next year or moves out at any time before the lease ends:

• Are you confident that each of your potential roommates would continue to pay his or her share of the rent – no matter what happens? Many students do not return to school after the first year because of their grades. They either get a job or transfer to an easier school. Sometimes, they leave because they can't afford to pay for school. Will they be able to afford to pay for an apartment in which they are not living?
  
  
• Would you expect a roommate who leaves to continue to pay an equal share of all utilities? Some utilities (for example, roommate keeps paying a share of the power and water bills but not for cable TV and internet)?
  
  
• Is everyone in your group willing to accept a stranger as a subtenant to replace an absent roommate? Are there any limitations on who that person can be (for example, must be a certain gender or must be a student or within a certain age range)?
  
  
• If your group has both men and women, is either a man or a woman acceptable as a subtenant?

3. Most leases are for an entire year. What do you plan to do about summer rent?

• Have you discussed whether you want to try to find subtenants (which carries some risk, namely that subtenants will do damage for which original tenants end up paying) or whether you will just pay rent for an empty apartment or your empty space in an apartment where one of your roommates stays for the summer?
  
  
• If you find one or two people to sublet but do not find one person to replace each of the original tenants, how will you apply the payments from the subtenants – share equally among all original tenants or will each person who found someone get the money paid by the person they found?
  
  
• If any one of you stays in the apartment for the summer, will he or she be willing to live with subtenants who are strangers?
  
  
• How will you handle division of utility bills? For example, if one of you stays for summer, one of you finds a subtenant and two of you leave without finding subtenants, will the utility bills be divided 4 ways, 2 ways or will you devise some arrangement for the absent people to contribute to the cost of summer utilities but pay a lower percentage of each bill than the two living in the apartment?

Go back to the home page and download a Roommate Agreement. This contract will not protect you from joint liability to the landlord, but it can be helpful for deciding in advance what you'll do if one person leaves before the lease is up, and for reminding each other what you agreed to if the situation were to arise.

A few places offer individual leases for one person's share of the apartment. This will protect you against liability for your roommate's rent, but it doesn't solve all roommate problems. The trade-off for not having to worry about your roommate's rent is that if s/he leaves, the landlord can replace your roommate with a stranger, whether you like that person or not. Also, in some of these situations you still share joint liability with your roommate for utility payments. In most of these situations, you share joint liability for any damage to the property -- even if it was caused by your roommate. Discuss any such arrangement with the Tenant Union before you make a commitment. We hear from many people, every year, who have financial and legal problems with roommates, even when they are on separate leases.

Also consider the wisdom of making a legally-binding commitment to live with strangers. Unlike in the University residence halls, at apartments that lease by the bedroom with individual leases, you cannot expect the landlord to help you if you have a roommate problem. Remember, your roommate could be ANY human being including someone who: is a lot older or younger than you, is not a student, is a slob or is an extremely neat person, a smoker or heavy drinker or user (or seller) of illegal drugs, really loud or complains you make too much noise, emotionally unbalanced and acts out against people in close proximity like roommates. Your roommate could be someone who eats your food without permission or steals from you when you are not home, someone who watches television in the common living room day and night, someone who moves a dog into the apartment in violation of the lease or moves a lover into the apartment to live there (also in violation of the lease).  These are all the issues about which Tenant Union has heard complaints from students who thought the so-called roommate matching would work to get them someone compatible. Hence, this is something you should consider seriously before moving into any place where the landlord can choose your roommates. Again, you will NOT have the same protections you have in the residence halls for dealing with serious roommate problems.

Can I evict my roommate?

Roommates do not have standing to evict other roommates, even for non-payment of rent or violating the lease. If you want to have the authority to go to court to evict a roommate, you need to get authorization from the landlord. Including this clause in your lease would help:

Lessor agrees that a non-defaulting co-lessee may act as the landlord's agent for purposes of seeking eviction of the defaulting co-tenant(s).

Be sure to have the landlord initial this statement in your lease.

 

 

Tenant Union | 326 Illini Union, MC-384, 1401 W. Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801 | 217.333.0112