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Re: the apartment is his and yours

Posted by Mark Smith on July 30, 1999 at 15:32:35:

In Reply to: Re: the apartment is his and yours posted by Anna on July 30, 1999 at 11:00:56:

As Anna said, you and your roommate/co-tenant are jointly and severally liable on the lease. Your "oral agreement" with the landlord is meaningless; he has the written lease holding you liable for all the rent and other obligations. But this "verbal agreement" indicates (1) the landlord does not have great confidence in your roommate's creditworthiness and (2) he doesn't know a great deal about contract law.

The landlord has to offer a renewal to both of you. He does not have to offer a renewal lease or a vacancy lease to either one of you. In fact, it was unwise of you to add a roommate to the lease as a co-tenant. What if things were reversed: what if you wanted to renew, but your roommate/co-tenant didn't? The landlord would not have to offer you a renewal lease or a vacancy lease.


: Dan: Who signed the first lease is no longer relevant: you are now equals; you are both tenants and can be held responsible for the whole rent separately or jointly.

: The landlord should drop your name from the next renewal lease: even if he does not, as long as you do not sign it, you will not be liable for it. It is usually more difficult to get a LL to add a name to a renewal lease than to subtract one. If your LL gives your co-tenant trouble: it will be their problem, not yours.Your co-tenant can immediately file a complaint with DHCR for failure to offer a renewal lease: learn more in the DHCR section on Tenant.net http://tenant.net/DHCR_info/ (from the HomePage: > New York Tenant Info >> Rent Stab/Rent Control) or goto DHCR's website: http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/

: BTW: "my verbal agreement that I was still responsible for the full amount of the
: rent": you cannot alter a written contract (lease) with an oral agreement. you know what they say about oral contracts? they are not worth the paper they're written on!


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