TL;DR = landlord wants me to be the only person on lease, and for me to sub-lease to my roommates. Should i do it? How do i do it? Advice? General thoughts?


I've rented my current house with 3-4 other people over the past year. There were 5 of us for the first 3 yrs, and 4 the past year. Even though all of our names are on the lease, I've been the only person our current landlord has really dealt with the past four years (I handle the rent, problems that needs to be reported, negotiating lease renewals, getting roommates added/removed from the lease, etc.).

Our lease is up at the end of June and one of the four is moving in with his gf. The remaining three of us want to move to a smaller/less expensive house.

We have found a house that fits all of our needs and is in our price range. However, the landlord only wants to deal with one person. In and of itself, that's not an issue with me since I've been the only person to really deal with our current landlord for the past 4yrs.

But this new landlord seems to want only one person on the lease and then have me sub-lease to my roommates. So it's not much different functionally, but is quite a bit different contractually.


This is completely new to me. I would definitely want to have them sign something stating that they're responsible for 1/3 of the rent, utilities, etc. or whatever we agree on (we pay different prices now based on room size and would likely do something similar).


Does anyone here have experience with sub-leasing? Particularly in a situation where you're still a tenant? And with good friends (which you would think would make it simpler, but sometimes complicates things).


I've found these documents which is probably where I would start.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5129365_write-printable-lease-agreement-roommates.html
http://tinyurl.com/7p92pes

[Edited on June 3, 2012 at 8:07 PM. Reason : .]

6/3/2012 8:04:29 PM

Don't do it.

The landlord will either deal with one check and multiple names on the lease or not.


I'm looking out for you here.

6/3/2012 8:15:33 PM

unless your friends trash the place or don't pay, it's not going to make a huge difference.

6/3/2012 8:25:23 PM

^^ any specific reasons or experiences? I've thought about this a fair amount, and I posted this to hear the things I haven't thought of. So anything you have to share may be very helpful.


^ one of them has a dog, so I want it clear that he is responsible for any damages from the dog that exceed the pet fee.

And one of them left with about a weeks notice during the first year of where we're at now. He was offered a job in another city (nothing crazy special). He told us and moved out, and then it fell through and he was back in a week and a half or so.

In his mind, he had no problem just leaving on that notice and with no offer to pay rent or anything beyond that point ("why should i pay if i'm not living there"). We told him he was going to have to pay 2 months rent (basically 60days notice) and rolled with it because we could easily afford what we were paying.



So I basically just want something to hold over them regarding damages, what their share is, and that they can't just up and leave. I'm not worried about the leaving thing at all with one of them, and the other has matured a lot since he did that before and I think would handle it much differently now (but he's set a precedent). I wouldn't be unreasonable, but I just don't want either of them feeling like they can just walk away on two weeks notice with 8 months left on the lease.

[Edited on June 3, 2012 at 9:35 PM. Reason : ^^]

6/3/2012 9:33:04 PM

You need to have everyone's name on the lease to avoid headaches for YOU in the future. Your giving money to your landlord to deal with that stuff, hes just trying to pawn it off on you and make you the middle man/ responsible if anything happens.

6/3/2012 9:43:42 PM

Yeah, I get that. But I only have so much control over it. If he says it's one name on the lease or nobody's, it's not like I have much leverage with the guy other than to say (perhaps not verbatim) "you can have this wrapped up today and income for the next year by doing it my way or we walk." I don't mind playing it that way, but it may not be necessary if I'm comfortable going the sub-lease route. And that's what I'm trying to figure out.

In my head i've said "no, gotta have everyone's names on the lease." I've also said, "they're my friends, it's probably not going to be a problem to do it this way." -- but I'm clearly bias to a certain degree.


What I'm looking/asking for here is some reasoning, not just "because." What are the problems I may run into and to what extent can I mitigate them and how? If i should avoid it at all costs, why?




I'm definitely going to ask him to put everybody's name on there once he gives me the final OK. He's given me a preliminary yes but still has to verify my employment and talk to my current landlord, but there won't be any problems on either of those fronts. He's just been pretty upfront and has said several times that he wants it to be just one person.

6/4/2012 12:02:23 AM

If you're the only name on the lease you are responsible for the entirety of the rent regardless of extenuating circumstances. Let's say they all move out or lose their sources of income, doesn't matter you owe the entirety of the rent every month. If all your names are on it you are all legally responsible for the entirety of the rent each month. You're putting yourself at unnecessary risk if you don't get the other people on the lease.

6/4/2012 1:24:06 AM

wouldn't having them sign sub-leases with me help with that?

I guess the problem would be that if something happened to the house it would be between me and the landlord. And then anything that came from that I could take up with them via whatever signed agreement I have with them. Which would be a major pain in the ass

6/4/2012 3:34:13 AM

He wants you to sign so that he has one go to person and you are soley responsible for your friends BS...with that said, why don't you just copy the signed agreement with your Landlord, white out the names and rental amount and have your friends sign the document. At the end, say "lease shall mean sub-lease, lessee shall mean sublessee, lessor shall mean sublessor, etc." and call it a sublease agreement.

6/4/2012 6:41:15 AM

Listen to everyone in this thread. It doesn't make things any easier for you, only him. In which case, you have no real reason to do this. It's not worth the hassle. Possible scenarios:

1) Something gets severely damaged
2) Roommate dips out on lease
3) Roommate is unable to or decides not to pay rent

In all of these, you'd be the scapegoat. Don't do it.

6/4/2012 8:38:03 AM

i'm a landlord and i require that each tenant signs their own lease so they are aware they are responsible for their share. i don't get how the landlord thinks only dealing with 1 person or 1 check is any easier - i receive multiple checks a month but with the way that ATMs are set up now you can deposit the checks grouped together and then get a printed receipt with a photo copy of the checks for tax purposes. plus, i make sure it's written in the lease that if that person doesn't pay their portion of rent on time, then they are the ones responsible for the late fee - this way it doesn't fall back on the other tenant who did pay on time.

and if an issue arises, i will email both tenants so everyone is aware and receiving the same message. that way there's no miscommunication.

6/4/2012 8:50:33 AM

Quote :

"This is completely new to me. I would definitely want to have them sign something stating that they're responsible for 1/3 of the rent, utilities, etc. or whatever we agree on (we pay different prices now based on room size and would likely do something similar)."

Completely wrong way to look at it. Yes, they will sign something with you. You need them to sign something with the landlord, and not just any document, but a document equivalent to the one you sign. If you sublease to them, yes, they have full responsibility to you to pay the rent.

If you friend bails with 6 months left on the lease, will you take him to court? You need to be prepared to pony up the entire check unconditionally if you do the subleasing option. Any case where you friend doesn't pay you take the hit. You can't just deduct the amount from what you pay the landlord, because it would be legally identical to YOU not honoring the terms of your lease.

Quote :

"Yeah, I get that. But I only have so much control over it. If he says it's one name on the lease or nobody's, it's not like I have much leverage with the guy other than to say (perhaps not verbatim) "you can have this wrapped up today and income for the next year by doing it my way or we walk.""

If you sound anything like this when you talk to your landlord, you suck at negotiating. You need to correctly represent the legal weight of the contract in your discussions with him. If he passes off subleasing as "not a big deal" then you should be armed with a boatload of legal facts to pwn his ass.

Take the lease duration and multiply by the total rent and ask yourself if you are okay with taking legal obligation for that amount plus any dumb crap your friends do to the apartment. Again, would you sue them? Do you think you could even get money from them if you won a settlement from them?

You would be a fucking saint and godsend to that landlord if you did the sublease option. Might as well pull down your pants and bend over as a symbolic gesture. You have completely under-represented the obligation that you're talking about taking on.

6/4/2012 9:17:37 AM

I was a room-mate on a sub-lease more tenuous than what you describe. I knew little about what that meant at the time, and in retrospect, it was a horrible legal situation all the way around, we just happened to be fortunate and decent, and no one bailed and we patched all the holes in the walls we made. But that was luck.

You've already noted that some of your room-mates seem willing to bail on short notice and not pay, and some of them have pets you don't want to be responsible for. If you are the only person on the lease, you will be responsible in either of those situations, and in any other problem that comes up. It does not matter what sub-lease agreements you draw up, you will still be responsible. If you have the sub-leases, then you can hold your buddies responsible, but it will be a legal matter between you and them. I prefer not to be in such legal relationships with friends, but more so, I prefer them to be very well defined if they exist.

Ponder the risk vs. return. You take on a large risk as sole signatory, what do you get out of it? Do the possible benefits match the potential losses?

6/4/2012 10:17:49 AM

Whoa, take it easy, bud. I do understand the weight of it. But these are not just friends. I've known these guys for most of my adult life and despite my hesitations, I trust these guys a good deal more than I may have let on because i'm not looking for "well if you trust them, do it."

At the same time, there's no need to be a douche. And no, that is not what I would actually say to the guy.but that is the gist of the situation. He has a house I want to live in and I have a paycheck he wants every month. Is that how I would play it, no. but that's what it is at the end of the day of how you go about. If he stands his ground, I either except his condition or have to walk.

6/4/2012 10:28:46 AM

Personally I think it's a terrible idea to sub-lease. All legal responsibility then falls on you if your roommates don't hold up their end of the deal. The landlord is trying to pass off legality onto you. If your roommates skip town, it's you that will have to bring them to small claims court not the landlord. You will be the one that ends up having to cough up money to make sure your credit doesn't tank due to roommate irresponsibility. Yes they're your friends but I've seen many, many, many friendships go south due to housing disputes. It's better to have the landlord take that legal responsibility, which he should be doing in the first place, than let that burden fall on your shoulders. I'm sure you can find another comparable rental if this guy won't budge.

6/4/2012 10:39:31 AM

I agree that sub-leasing is a terrible idea, especially with friends with pets and those known to bail with little notice. Listen to the people in this thread. There is a chance that things will go swimmingly, but I've seen too many roommate disputes to give you any advice other than put everyone's names on the lease. Or get the landlord to agree to separate leases. If you can't... you probably want to find a different landlord.

I understand that these guys are your homies, but sometimes that's the worst possible situation when things take a turn for the crappy.

6/4/2012 11:09:37 AM

Quote :

"I understand that these guys are your homies, but sometimes that's the worst possible situation when things take a turn for the crappy. "

This.

6/4/2012 11:13:59 AM

bad idea. Especially when this has already happened:

Quote :

"And one of them left with about a weeks notice during the first year of where we're at now. He was offered a job in another city (nothing crazy special). He told us and moved out, and then it fell through and he was back in a week and a half or so. In his mind, he had no problem just leaving on that notice and with no offer to pay rent or anything beyond that point ("why should i pay if i'm not living there"). "

6/4/2012 11:42:05 AM

Quote :

""well if you trust them, do it.""

Absolutely not! If this were all-trust, all-around, and the landlord didn't care about a lease 'cuz he knew you and trusted you, well, that's a different world entirely. I did stay 4 years in a place I rented on a handshake, the landlord was awesome, and I paid on time for 4 years and didn't trash the place.

However, you are considering entering into a binding, legal relationship where you take responsibility for your friends, and you have already stated that you want a document clarifying their responsibilities, in part due to past actions.

The real question is, are you bluffing? If Joe gets a job in Miami, Ohio and give you 2 weeks notice and decides he doesn't want to pay for a place he's not living in, what will you actually do? Are there acceptable outcomes? Is Joe a good enough friend that you would cover his share of the rent? Are you willing to take legal action, which is likely to be time-consuming, somewhat costly, and destroy the friendship?

Or, just to throw a damper on this party, what if one of them dies? If I die, my lease terminates. If your room-mate dies, you still have to pay their share of the rent. Are you going to cover their share of the rent, or are you going to pursue their estate?

These are some of the questions you need to consider. If the answer in all of them is, "He's my buddy, I'll cover for him", then there's no need for paperwork between you. If the answer is, "I'll pursue legal action against him / his estate", then you need paperwork, and the responsibilities need to be clearly defined.

If the answer is, "I trust him, there won't be any problems." Then you need to GTFO. It's a naive stance that puts you in a shitty situation you haven't considered when something comes up.

6/4/2012 11:51:23 AM

Actually, a lot of the answers to those questions are yes. I would cover rent for them in must situations, and they would do the same For me and each other.

My biggest hesitation is whether or not I'd follow through with legal action if something did arise. And that's tough to answer.

I tend to over think things more than under think them. So i'm definitely hesitant and have some doubts, but I also know that a lot of people out there are landlords our have subleases. It's not like i'm considering climbing Everest here. Not to downplay what's at risk just saying that this is a relatively common practice. And that's a factor.

For those of you who have actually been a landlord of some nature, how would you suggest I go forward if I decide to go that route?

6/4/2012 12:24:14 PM

So really you didn't want to know if you should do it but how to do it.

6/4/2012 6:51:41 PM

i was looking for input on both, but particularly the how to's and "make sure you have x, y, z covered."

I definitely asked "how do i do it?" in the OP. And I asked specifically for people who have some sort of experience. But re-reading it, I realize some people probably read the "TL;DR" and skipped what I intitially wrote, which ended with:

Quote :

"Does anyone here have experience with sub-leasing? Particularly in a situation where you're still a tenant? And with good friends (which you would think would make it simpler, but sometimes complicates things)."

And maybe I didn't really make it as clear as I should have to begin with.


But yes, I'm especially looking for input on the best way to go about, worst ways to go about it, stuff that could come up in the situation that I actually have a sub-lease with them, etc.

General input was/is welcome for sure. But i get the "i'm legally liable for the house as far as the landlord goes" thing. Multiple people have posted it, and I get that part and will factor it into my decision. And I can play "don't do it, it's too much risk and I'll get completely screwed, sued, and ruin my friendships" vs "oh, no worries... This will be fine because we're all best buds" all by myself. I'm looking for genuine feedback that's not on the extremes, preferably based on experience either as the sub-leaser, the sub-leasee, or from straight up landlords.

[Edited on June 4, 2012 at 8:59 PM. Reason : .]

6/4/2012 8:51:54 PM

I'm no lawyer, but it seems like he might actually have more power doing the sub-lease option.

Suppose worst case scenario happens and all of the roommates leave and decide not to pay. If they are all on the lease, the landlord is still going to go after the OP for the rent because he is still in the house and he is still going to have damaged credit and/or get sued unless he can cover the whole rent on his own for the duration of the lease. In this case, though, he has no recourse over his roommates.

If he subleases to his roommates, then if the same scenario happens, he would still be responsible for the rent, but at least he would be able to go after the money from his roommates if he wanted to pursue it.

Of course in the best case scenario, they both work fine.

6/4/2012 9:03:20 PM

I can only think of two potential upsides to subleasing in a scenario like this. The first one, ^ just above was just mentioned.

The second one would be to mark up their rent to you to cover your risk & any administrative hassle. This would, in turn, reduce your rent obligation.

6/4/2012 10:12:47 PM

^ that's a good point, and I think it's very reasonable if I'm taking on more risk than them.

6/4/2012 10:28:08 PM

Most of the arguments in this thread for putting everyone's name on the lease stem from an assumption that the other roommates care about their credit and rental history. That may or may not be the case. Having them on the lease doesn't remove your risk of having to pay the entire rent for the duration of the lease. It just poses a threat to them to if they don't pay it. In most cases, the landlord isn't going to care who pays the rent, and won't go after anyone if it's getting paid. When none of you pay, he'll seek to collect, through legal avenues, from all of you, in the hopes that one of you will pay it. When one pays, all benefit. It's a dumb system, but if your landlord is already insisting that only one person be on the lease for a house that comfortably fits 4 residents, it's highly unlikely he'd agree to 4 individual leases. Individual leases are the only way to (mostly) protect yourself.

I'll throw out another scenario. Let's assume that one of your friends is a 6. He starts dating a 9, who is addicted to cocaine and bat-shit crazy. Now he's never fucked a girl this hot before, so he's pretty much willing to do anything to keep her. She needs him to buy cocaine for her. He likes doing cocaine with her because it makes him feel good and they have pretty awesome sex when they're both high. That gets expensive. Keeping her pussy wet can quickly become more important than paying the rent on time, or at all. In fact, if he can maintain her addiction by moving to a cheaper place, he's likely to do it, and pull it off before any negative rental history hits his background. Friendships are killed everyday over situations like this (guys and girls, not blaming either sex).

You might think that sounds completely unrealistic because your friends aren't drug users and like stable relationships, but even the most grounded among us can let infatuation turn into obsession. Obsession is like addiction. It becomes your only focus and you rationalize out why your real responsibilities aren't required to be priorities. What you know to be true about any of your friends today may not be true tomorrow.

6/5/2012 12:23:39 AM

haha, i at least got a laugh out of that. But i get what you're saying in that you can't be certain of where their life will be in the next year. And while they're not 6s dating 9s (to give them credit, they both have consistently dated very high on the scale for years), they're both in fairly committed relationships that could that could escalate to new levels in the next year (engagement, moving in together, etc).

We have talked about that though, since it could be a factor whether we're all on the same lease or not. Basically, we've sat down and said "we're committing to one more year of living together" and are all on the same page there. Obviously there are no guarantees there. But it's one more, BIG, risk if I'm the only person on the main lease.


I'll be talking to the landlord more today about the specifics of the lease, and I've expressed to him that it's my preference for all of us to be on the lease for shared liability reasons, but that I'd be happy to be his conduit as far as dealing with anything goes at the house goes, rent, etc. So maybe this will all be moot from the "who's on the lease" perspective.

6/5/2012 7:28:00 AM

I have a question. What happens if all four are on the lease and one person leaves before the lease is over will the other three have to cover the rent? If you are the primary and they are the subs and it happens will only you be on the hook for the rent?

6/5/2012 7:43:28 AM

To answer your question (there are three of us total), I think wed still owe the full rent we don't each have individual leases. My guys is that it would be a good bit easier to go after that one person legally. But I don't really know.

That being said, the way the landlord wants to do it it's this: I'd be listed as the tenant, each of the other two guys would be listed as "allowable occupants". So it sounds like I would definitely need to draw up subleases for them if I decide to do it.

6/5/2012 3:38:47 PM