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Posted by Dayann on July 14, 2001 at 17:49:13:

In Reply to: Apt Share posted by Apt Share Question on July 10, 2001 at 17:13:58:

One of my friends did an apartment share. What she did was she went and got a bloomberg form of a standard lease and revised it to fit the roomate situation. Maybe you can look at your lease and put it in plain language, and just change stuff so that it applies to your situation. You should be sure to include something in there that explains that your roomate is not the named lessee, so there is no confusion if you move out and she wants to stay. The lease doesn't have to be all that formal, you can sit down over a cup of coffee and each of you go over what you both need to have a workable living relationship, how rent and bills (like phone, electric, gas, cable) should be paid, etc. Then you put all that in writing, it could even be in the form of a letter or list. Be sure its signed by both people and that it gets notarized, and that it mentions something about how long the agreement lasts. I would suggest that you get together with your roomie every 6 mos or so to check in and see if there need to be any additions to the agreement, so everyone is clear on what's expected of them and everyone's happy.

NOLO puts out a really good book that covers this type of stuff, I think it is the "renter's handbook" or something like that. NOLO is cool because it includes sample documents to give you an idea of the language and what stuff should look like. Why not check out the NOLO website for a list of recent titles and then go to the library or bookstore and read up a little bit?

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: One of my friends did an apartment share.  What she did was she went and got a bloomberg form of a standard lease and revised it to fit the roomate situation.  Maybe you can look at your lease and put it in plain language, and just change stuff so that it applies to your situation.  You should be sure to include something in there that explains that your roomate is not the named lessee, so there is no confusion if you move out and she wants to stay.  The lease doesn't have to be all that formal, you can sit down over a cup of coffee and each of you go over what you both need to have a workable living relationship, how rent and bills (like phone, electric, gas, cable) should be paid, etc.  Then you put all that in writing, it could even be in the form of a letter or list.  Be sure its signed by both people and that it gets notarized, and that it mentions something about how long the agreement lasts.  I would suggest that you get together with your roomie every 6 mos or so to check in and see if there need to be any additions to the agreement, so everyone is clear on what's expected of them and everyone's happy.

: NOLO puts out a really good book that covers this type of stuff, I think it is the "renter's handbook" or something like that.  NOLO is cool because it includes sample documents to give you an idea of the language and what stuff should look like.  Why not check out the NOLO website for a list of recent titles and then go to the library or bookstore and read up a little bit?


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