I’d personally:
- Explain my feelings to her and ask for the final month’s rent.
- If she declined to provide it, hand her any moneys I’m holding onto and chalk it up to my own mistake.
I think, really, in the absence of any signed and notarized contract, it’s pretty much up in the air. Your roomie told you she’d pay the rent. You told her you’d give her her money back. Keep the money and see if she charges you with theft. And, uh, next time, get it in writing.
Notarized? I must have slept late that day in school.
To answer a few questions…
Her giving notice was not really a datable event. I learned that she was moving out (but not when) second-hand, so I’m not sure when she first told someone. We had assumed that her plans were still vague and that she’d let us know when she knew something concrete about the timing. It wasn’t until two nights ago that she announced the date that she was moving out to the group. At that point, we asked how she wanted to take care of the last month’s rent. She made it clear that she didn’t intend to pay it.
Yes, but this is a whole other can of worms. Basically, the old roommate is AWOL, so the rent is still on us. This does raise the interesting question of what happens to the old roommate’s security deposit when the landlord cannot find her. Does he get to keep it after a certain time?
This hinges on the interpretation that she is a month-to-month tenant (which I think is probably legally correct, but morally fuzzy given the verbal agreements we had). None of the rest of us view our living situation as month-to-month–it has always the case that if you move out or leave for a significant period, you either find someone to sublet or you pay the rent. Indeed, this is the very reason she became our tenant.
Just by way of defending my own honor here, I wasn’t changing my interpretation based on your cite. Like any fan of The People’s Court, I was already aware that in many jurisdictions a security deposit cannot be used for paying rent. I should have been more careful with my language, but as I explained, the money she gave us was a general guarantee of her behavior as a subletter–which although not clearly defined, could reasonably be expected to include paying rent fully and on time.
But, in the end I think you and the majority in this thread are right. We cannot force her to pay the rent, and if we want to get money out of her, we’d need to take her to court. Short of that, we’ll just have to eat it. I intend to offer to split it 50/50 with her, she covers half and the rest of us cover the other half. This is basically a last ditch effort, we’ll see if she sees through it.
Landlord / tenant laws don’t really apply in cases of roommates - at least, they’re VERY hard to enforce and I would guess most agencies won’t bother; they have too many legitimate cases (with contracts etc) to look into.
This woman is screwing you. She KNOWS that she owes the money - if she is living there, she should be paying rent. Plain and simple.
If she gave you guys a month’s rent as any kind of deposit “just in case” then I would say this situation is just such a case. Keep it. If she takes you to court (which she won’t - who would bother?) then there is a very good chance the judge would order you to refund the deposit, and order her to pay the rent.
This is all just my opinion, but it seems like common sense.
Hang on now-
You’re asking her to pay rent for a month when she will not be living in the house?
You sublet the room without the landlord’s knowledge?
Without a lease, or any kind of written contract, she is free to leave at any time during her tenancy, after giving you reasonable notice- which, actually, she did.
Either sublet the room to someone else for the remainder of the lease, make up the difference yourselves, or get the person who has their name on the lease to pay up.
Legally, she owes you nothing and you owe her the “security deposit”.
Suck it up, learn from your mistakes and get it in writing next time.
It’s not required for most contractual agreements, but introduces an official witness. Why not? Take an hour out your life and get the little stamp, and it will make the contract that much more difficult to dispute. Two of my past landlords (one of which was an attorney…a little scary leasing from an attorney) had our leases notarized. Again, why not? It’s smart money.
We are asking her to pay rent for a month when she will not be living in the house. But, this is not uncommon when you agree to rent a room for a set period of time (4 months).
Our landlord is fully aware of a sublet arrangement; I’m not sure where you got that part.
It isn’t clear to me that her notice was reasonable; and in any case, while your reasoning may be legally compelling, I don’t see why it’s ethically compelling.
Umm,* no, you didn’t.* Since the OP hasn’t said what State he lives in, your cite is too general to be worth much. As has been said, in CA, Security deposits can go against unpaid rent. I think other states have the same law.
Next, on to what she owes- in general she owes only for the time her ass was in the room, as you did not specify otherwise. And, of course, and deductions for damages and (in some States) cleaning. Of course, this answer may depend on what state you live in. In some states, no written agreement may default to “give 30 days written notice”, but she did give notice, and thus I’d have to say that without some real strange State law, you’re hosed. On the other hand, you could have filled her vacancy.
Richard Parker and others- this is why outting a valid location in your profile is a good thing. Basicially, every response here is more or less worthless as you haven’t told us what State you live in. Please come back with that CRITICAL piece of information.
We didn’t know exactly when her vacancy would be until two days ago.
You too? I was hoping to borrow your notes.
::Scampers from room before he can say anything that might be construed as legal advice::
It’s too late, you’ve already revealed your entire legal position. It’s all there in the cadence, the syntax–in what you didn’t mention. And even though I was explicitly not looking for legal opinions, I will not base all of my actions on your legal advice. MWAA HAHA HAH AHAHA!
Bwa! You used your lawyer power to change “now” to “not” and to italicize the wrong word. Evil. Evil.
Are you sure these options are mutually exclusive?
No, in fact, we should try to turn this into a mental health thread as well as a law thread. What other disclaimers could we make people add? Maybe something about tax implications?
“I am not a lawyer, doctor, accountant, archaeologist, or herpatologist and even though I am a poet, I am certainly not *your *poet nor am I licensed to practice poetry in your state. Nonetheless, here’s my opinion…”
This seems to be the answer, she was month to month and can leave at any time, it is the person subletting who may be on the hook, depending on the contract with him/her.
Thanks for filling in the location part of your profile, some legal eagle from Or will likely step in with some facts. So, Ok, when does her vacancy start? When did she give her “notice”? 
Her vacancy starts May 1. When she gave notice depends on how you define the term. We were made aware in early March that she would be moving out early–but it wasn’t clear that “early” meant a full month early until just a few days ago.
Most of the answers to your legal questions (the ones you weren’t really asking) can be found here:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/090.html (Chapter 90 deals with landlord and tenant; see especially the sections 90.100(20), 90.220, and 90.427)
http://www.osbar.org/public/legalinfo/tenant.html
http://www.tenant.net/Other_Areas/Oregon/landlord.html
I was unable to locate a moral or ethical code for Portland. OTOH, you had notice that she planned to leave way back in March. Did you ask her when she was moving out? Did you tell her that you expected her to pay rent for a full month when you knew she planned to leave before its end? Did you ask her to put her intentions in writing? Why not?
Sorry, I assumed since you were the ones who had the “security deposit” and not the landlord, that he was unaware of the sublet.
As it is, someone knew she was leaving early in March, and you’ve still got almost a week to find a new tenant for a month- plenty of notice.
Since it was a verbal agreement for the 4 month rent and not a legal one, she still doesn’t owe rent for the last one. What if she’d had a family emergency two weeks ago and needed to move back home? Or decided last week that she could no longer live with any of you because you’re driving her nuts- she’s entitled to leave at any time without paying rent because it is not a legally binding lease.
IMO it is ethically more suspect to withhold her money in order pay rent when she is not resident and has given you almost 2 months notice of her intention to move out, than for her not to pay it.
In the past when I have rented without a lease, I’ve given notice to my landlord of my intention to move out on a Monday, and been out of the house, security deposit in hand, by the Friday, without putting anyone’s nose out of joint. As it is now, I am leasing, and under the terms of the lease, we give 1 months notice of intention to leave if we intend to break the lease, otherwise we forfeit our security deposit.
It is not a tenant’s responsibility to find a new tenant before vacating a property, and it is not the legal responsibility of a non-leaseholder to pay rent when they are not resident- why on earth would it be?
It is the responsibility of the people who have their names on the lease to pay the rent. So either get a new sublet, club together and cover the rent, or have the person who is legally responsible for the rent (the person with their name on the lease) pay it.