Replacing Myself in Three Bedroom

[Temo]

Ive recently moved to New York to attend Columbia and just when I thought I was in the clear as far as finding a place, it has become a disaster. Through a friend of a friend, I connected with a pair of roommates who totally mislead me into a lease in a ridiculously rough part of town despite my concerns (I know it's my fault but I was certainly mislead after asking all the right questions).

So now I'm both infuriated with these two and stuck in a very unsavory area of town for someone who consistently comes home with about 4k worth of equipment.

The question: if I find a replacement tenant, would it be unreasonable for that person to pay me back what I paid for the brokers fee and security deposit? This seems fair to me in the basic sense but I'm from California where broker fees are unheard of. Should I expect to lose out on my broker fee?

Thanks a ton.

[TenantNet]

How are you paying brokers fees for a roommate situation? You say you found the roommates through a friend of a friend. How are broker fees involved here?

What part of town is it?

[Temo]

It was a situation where the two of them happened to be out of their lease and were looking for a new place at the same time so the fee was split three ways.

It's an area of west Harlem that I was tirelessly told was on the rise and was a completely safe family area. I was told it was like the area just north of central park but it's more like south central truth be told. I went to USC and this area puts to shame a lot of the 'scary' areas you might see around there.

[ronin]

Wellll, it seems that you want out of your deal. Logically you are going to have a harder time finding someone to enter into the roommate situation that you helped create. I strongly doubt that anyone will pay you brokers fees, simply because that isn't done in roommate situations where you pay the roommates and you would lose out to competing roommate offers.

There is also the problem of if you happen find a sucker to pay you your fees. Unless you have a real estate license you could find yourself getting sued and fined for charging broker fees without a broker's license.

Labeling them "reimbursements" is very unlikely to protect you if someone presses the issue.

PS. The internet is full of hungry brokers looking to nail unlicensed competitors....

IMHO