My youngest girl is just about to graduate college, and I’ve offered to help her get herself set up–she’s looking for an apartment to share with some friends in the Boston area, which is great because I’ll be able to visit her there. She’s just the most reliable, honest, most mature kid I can imagine, so there’s no worries there, but her prospective landlord has informed her that he needs a parent to cosign the lease.
I don’t mind a bit helping her out in this way, but people who’ve done this, or anything like this, may be able to tell me what to watch out for in the lease, what a reasonable liability to take on might be, what safeguards I can ask for, what limits to my responsibilities are. Asking this, I realize that I don’t even know what to look out for. Anyone been here, done this?
Not too much to offer except an anecdote. My dad co-signed my first lease (and took me apartment hunting on the day of my 18th birthday, which I greatly appreciated), with no trouble. I was also always mature/ responsible, etc., and we’d talked about finances so he knew I wasn’t getting in over my head. At the one-year mark when I went to a month-to-month lease, the apartment company took his name off the lease.
In general, by cosigning on the lease, you are agreeing to be bound by the lease as if you lived there as a tenant in fact. Unless the lease specifies something different, you are liable for the full sum of the lease in the event that any of your cotenants default (such as your daughter’s slackass friends). You are not only liable for the divided share your daughter plans to pay, unless that is specified.
Look, if me, Bob, and Jane sign a lease obligating us to pay $2100/mo, and if we agree to each pay a third – our agreement isn’t binding on the landlord. If Bob and Jane run off together to Tangiers, I still owe the full $2100. I can sue Jane and Bob for contribution, if I can find them, but in the immediate I am obligated to pay in full and so will you be, if this happens to your daughter and she is unable to pay. Unless the agreement says otherwise
BTW, It is not uncommon for leases in college towns to have any number of illegal and unenforcable clauses. It is not unusual for municipalities to have local laws regarding renting rights and obligations. Your best bet for accurate local information about what is permitted and what isn’t is a tenant’s union (also not uncommon in college towns). Here’s one I found: Boston tenant Coalition
IAAL, not your lawyer, and not a real estate lawyer
ETA: my parents cosigned my first lease and it worked out fine BUT I lived alone.
IMHO, don’t do this unless you are prepared to pay the entire rent every single month for the length of the lease. I know, your kid’s different and won’t let you down. That’s great, but don’t do this unless you’re prepared to pay the entire rent every month for the length of the lease, because if you co-sign, that’s what you’re saying you’re prepared to do.
And read the lease BEFORE you sign it.
Best of luck and best wishes for your child’s launch.
[IAAL, but I am not your lawyer, blah, blah, blah, anonymous message board advice, yadda, yadda.]
As soon as you said “roommates,” I started hyperventilating.
NOT ONLY can you get stuck for the entire rent, for the duration of the lease, BUT if the roommates morph into alien mutant creatures from Hell who live like pigs, punch holes in the walls, rip out plumbing and destroy appliances, guess who will get the bill?
Your daughter would be much better off living solo in the proverbial “broom closet over a bowling alley” than taking on roommates AND having you co-sign on the lease.
Just to be clear, I’m not asking if co-signing is wise. I’m going to do it, my girl deserves my full support and this is a tangible way of providing it–I’m just looking for safeguards, ways to minimize my exposure, ways to curtail my liability. I don’t think persuading her to get an apartment by herself will work, given housing prices in the area, but that would be one way to get some peace of mind. I know how flaky roommates can be, having been one and having had many in my time, but I think that’s a given. But how about limiting my liability to a single year? How about negotiating the landlord’s responsibility to rent the apartment out in case they need to break the lease?
My best friend bought a house in the town where her oldest daughter, and now her youngest daughter, went to college. When youngest daughter started college, a “friend” from high school asked to be a roommate.
Oh my. I know kids can get a little wild when they get out from under Mommy and Daddy’s thumb, but this was an entire personality change. This girl lost her freaking mind. My friend ended up having to bring the girl’s parents into the fray.
So no matter how much your daughter trusts her roommates to be, do not sign the lease unless you are prepared for the financial ramifications. It may all be wonderful and all is good. Just be prepared.
ETA: sorry, you hadn’t replied when I started my post.
This happened all of the time in NYC while I was there. Lots of young people had to get cosigning parents; however, in order to make it “fair”. I knew several tenants with the co-signing parents demanded (usually unknown to the other renters) a higher rent rate/portion than their own child paid. Or they even had the “kids” pay an extra final months rent check or had an added fee that would add up to the final months rent at the end of the year. You are putting yourself at risk and should get some benefit as compensation.
It takes a lot of finagling to pull off different rent schemes (especially among friends), but when I hear stories about how the electric company has gone after parents 4-7 years later for the final electrical bill not being paid (and in one case, it appeared that they never ended service so the next tenant just moved in and had electricity for 6+ months at the previous tenant’s expense, but the collection agency takes years and all documentation is long gone), I have ZERO interest in co-signing without some strong legal documents and plans in place.
I would suggest that you insist that all occupants are on the lease, and that all the other occupants have a parent co-sign as well.
At least then if you wind up footing the whole bill, you can collect from the dead-beat kids as well as their parents. (Parents tend to have deeper pockets making collection easier. )
I think I covered most of your clarification points, but I don’t think you are going to get much success in negotiating with the landlord. From what I’ve heard and seen, rentals (at least worthwhile ones) are not like the housing market. A landlord is most likely not going to want to deal with you or any demands. You can try, but I’m willing to bet that anything outside of a “standard contract” is unlikely.
So to cover yourself (I am really really not a lawyer):
All roommates must sign a legal agreement with your daughter and/or you stating that they will be responsible for all of their charges. List charges and utilities they will be partially responsible for.
a. How long the agreement should last as well. They are responsible for the rent until the end of the agreement. Eviction by you can be done in 30 days after a 2nd warning.
Extensions or changes must be agreed to in writing by both parties more than 30 days before the effective change.
Get EVERYTHING in writing. Provide them a copy.
One months rent as a deposit to be repaid within 10 days after the end of the lease/agreement.
10% premium (either as a “tax” on top of their rent and utilities or as a reduction in your daughter’s share)- this is just a risk sharing/business opportunity cost to the risk taker - also, your daughter will be hounding them for their bill/rent shares and doing the banking as such. This takes time and is annoying as hell, so do it as a business would
I was fine until I saw the roommates part. I had no problem signing for my daughter, but she didn’t have any roommates at the time. Not every kid is as responsible as yours, and not every parent is as responsible as you.
Ask your lawyer what you’d be responsible for if things go bad.
Just re-read her letter–she says that the apartment owner is subletting the apt and wants “a parental cosigner for each of us.” This seems good to me, if I find out who the other co-signers are.
First, definitely have her try to do it without a cosigner before you do anything rash.
Have her say something like: I’m an adult, and my parents don’t support me, I’ll be signing the lease myself, thanks.
The landlord could very well fold and lease it out to her without a cosigner.
Or maybe she and her friends can look for another apartment. They can’t all require cosigners.
I wouldn’t do it. She doesn’t NEED a cosigner at this point in her life. It’d be one thing if she was 18 and freshly moved out of the house with no credit history whatsoever. But for a 22 year old soon-to-be grad? A cosigner is *not *necessary for a person in this demographic to find a rental. Recommend that she look further off-campus or in a nearby city instead.
I moved to Boston myself, right after college, and never once encountered a landlord that wanted anything from my parents. This included the first place I lived, which was practically a student boarding house. And I moved three more times in the next three years, so I did more than my fair share of apartment hunting, visiting dozens throughout Cambridge, Somerville, Boston, and Brookline.
There are plenty of other apartments out there. This one sounds like more trouble than its worth.
“Safeguards, minimized exposure, curtailed liability” go OUT THE WINDOW when you are a co-signer. THAT is why the landlord wants a co-signer.
Read the lease CAREFULLY. In the event your daughter and/or her roommates “need” to break the lease, THEY (meaning YOU) are responsible for finding a new renter. The landlord has the LEASE that makes sure that he gets his money for the duration of the lease.
A lease basically says to the renter: you gotta stay here for a year (or whatever the length is) and the landlord will not raise your rent for that period of time. A lease says to the landlord: sit back and collect the rent for a year.
There are no safeguards for you. And the landlord’s safeguard is…THE CO-SIGNER.
~VOW
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