Kicking a "roommate" out...

Factual Questions
41

Unless new information comes forth, she had every opportunity to find her own group of friends to take over the lease. In all likelihood they would have even had an advantage in the leasing process because they knew her cousin and he most likely would have received a referral bonus. In this new arrangement she could have most likely dictated the terms and secured her precious bedroom. Nevertheless, she did not do that and instead is having to deal with several strangers who are not going to put up with her shit.

Kick her ass to the curb. It’ll save a lot of drama in the long run.

42

I tried to pass this thread up. Really, I tried. But the bad legal advice sucked me in.

IAAL, but probably not licensed in your state. I’m not your lawyer. This is not reliable legal advice. How could it be? We don’t even know what state this is all happening in. Of course, that’s a concept that our crew of Bad Unqualified Legal Posters blithely ignores. (I’m using “unqualified” here in the dual sense of “the responder doesn’t know what he’s talking about” and “the responder is making direct, certain statements about the law, not limited by any exceptions or disclaimers.”) I don’t mean to imply that everyone who’s responded is a BULP, and even some of the BULPs make a good point or two, on a practical level.

Maybe she is a sublessor. We really don’t know enough to say, either factually or legally.

Even if she is, your second sentence isn’t necessarily true. (probably isn’t).
At least, she likely has state law rights that would prevent the landlord or other tenants from forcibly evicting her the day after the lease ends. She might have more rights than that, either directly or through her cousin, including the right to renew the lease, but that depends on what state’s laws apply, and whether the landlord has given any notices that might be required.

In other words, your unqualified assertion that her “claim” to the premises ends immediately at the end of the lease should not have been made.

I think that the rest of your post had some good ideas, although I wouldn’t rely on the process that you suggest as having any legal force behind it.

  1. Unclear 2. See above comments.

The landlord’s duties and powers here are unclear. If the OP and his friends were an entirely new group, they likely would have a claim against a landlord who failed to provide them with premises unemcumbered by other tenants, whether there legally or not. And the landlord likely could begin eviction proceedings against holdover tenants, or people standing in their shoes.

But the OP and friends are not a completely new group. There also seem to be some oral agreements or understandings that have been reached among various parties. The landlord may claim that he was told by existing tenants that they wished to renew the existing lease, while at the same time amending it both by deleting and adding tenant names, and that he agreed to this. He may also have accepted the girl as a subtenant or assignee of her cousin. Again, much depends on state law.

No, she’s not a squatter with no rights. See above comments. Also note that she’s been paying rent that the landlord has been accepting. That alone means that she’s not a squatter. I’m not aware of any state where your statement would be correct.

Legally speaking, you’re wrong. See above.

As to the landlord: Maybe, maybe not. Yes, if we assume that she (and her cousin) have no explicit or implicit agreement with the landlord regarding extension/renewal of the existing lease, and if we assume that the applicable state law imposes no notice-of-lease-nonrenewal obligation on the landlord, then the landlord likely has the ability to set whatever (legal) new lease terms he wishes, which he can enforce by beginning eviction proceedings if she (the “girl” in the OP) refuses to accept. As to the “leaseholders”: who are they? Has the landlord even signed the new lease that the OP has signed? Even if the OP’s lease has been accepted and signed by the landlord, the OP still can’t summarily throw out an existing occupant who has established residence there. (Yes, the OP likelywould have a claim against the landlord under those circumstances, and might be able to begin eviction proceedings himself against the holdover.)

-More-

43

TonyF: you have asked for specific advice about a situation you’re in. It turns out that most of the people in this thread have offered you legal advice, whether or not that’s what you were looking for, as opposed to simply practical, life-experience type of advice. Of course, you should rely on legal advice you get on an internet message board just as much as you would an email from a nice gentleman in Nigeria who just needs a wee bit of help getting some cash out of the country.

Here’s the best advice you’ve gotten in this thread and, frankly, the only advice I’d take:

As others have pointed out, so much of your situation is unknown. We don’t know your jurisdiction, so we don’t know what laws apply. We don’t know what discussions you’ve had with the girl, with the former tenants, with the landlord, etc.

What lawyers do is take general legal principles, then elicit from the client relevant facts (the “fact pattern”). By applying those facts to the law, lawyers then can advise you about what you can or should do, and what the likely outcomes are. As you will note, it is critical that the lawyer know (a) what the law is and (b) what the facts are. In this case, we know neither to any level of certainty.

On preview, a lot of what Random said.

TonyF, I am not your lawyer, and I’m probably not even licensed in your jurisdiction. What follows is not legal advice, as will become apparent soon.

What do you want to do in the end – how do you want this resolved? Is this girl someone you can live with? Will you be able to make rent without her? Could you find a substitute quickly? As a practical matter, you may be best off trying to work this thing out.

I realize a lot of people have advised you simply to evict her (easier said than done), but truthfully, you may be better off finding a trustworthy, reliable person willing to act as a mediator, who can sit all of you prospective roomies down and negotiate some solution.

44

Cite for your absolute, unqualified true-no-matter-what-state-we’re talking-about claim that the girl has no legal standing? At worst, she’s a subtenant or assignee of her cousin, a tenant under the prior written lease, that is now in violation of that lease (either by holding over or otherwise). Even if the prior lease requires lessor approval of subleases, and that’s legal under the applicable state law, it appears that the landlord has given that appoval by accepting her rent. Even in this worst case scenario, she can’t be forcibly evicted without legal process in any state I’m familiar with.

As for “squatters rights”, (a) that term is usually a reference to adverse possession law (as someone else has explained) and not landlord-tenant situations; and (b) adverse possession is most certainly recognized in the US.

I tend to agree with your non-legal points about the relative reasonableness of the parties.

Smart man (woman?), this. But not everyone recognizes wisdom, and indeed some snidely reject it:

Is there a new lease? Has the landlord signed it? It appears that the landlord still has it in his possession and, although at least the OP and some of the OP’s intended fellow tenants have signed it, it doesn’t appear that the landlord has. At least, he hasn’t returned it to the OP if he has, and any non-foolish landlord would not have signed a lease under these circumstances. This doesn’t seem to be a done deal yet from the landlord’s point of view. Even if he has signed it, the roster of new tenants that he’s been promised haven’t all signed it - the fifth tenant referred to by the OP seems to be the girl. Also, you’re ignoring the effect of tenant’s rights laws that may apply, and the practical considerations msmith recognizes.

Also, explain to me how the OP’s “instructions” to the landlord have any power.

If I’m the landlord, it seems that I have a few choices that the OP may not like, including signing the lease as is, and holding those who have signed it (4 people, apparently) to the full rent, or tearing up the new lease and starting eviction proceeding against everyone there the minute the existing lease is up.

This lease term is, I agree, fairly commmon (actually, it usually prohibits subleases that aren’t approved by the landlord), but acceptance of rent from the subtenant is often the basis for a legal conclusion that the landlord has waived such a lease term. Even if there’s no waiver, and the sublease was made in violation of the lease, the landlord still has to legally evict her.

No, not in any state I’ve ever heard of. Cite? This might be the wrongest legal claim in a field that’s rich in bad legal claims to target. Landlords aren’t allowed to evict apartment residents by calling up the police and getting them arrested for trespassing.

She’s established that residency in the apartment though a valid tenant to an existing lease. Even if that residency was established through a sublease that violates a lease term, the remedy for that lease violation is in court, not through the police. See above general discussion of landlord-tenant law, and numerous references to (civil) eviction proceedings.

-more-

45

Unsurprisingly, I agree with Campion’s comments, especially the succinct explanation of how one must apply (known) facts to (known) law.

46

Huh? Regarding (a), are you positing a situation where the putative tenant pays some random person unconnected with the landlord? I suppose what you say in (a) is true, but your qualification of TD’s statement seems kind of pointless in any realistic setting.

Regarding (b), you seem to be alluding to the possibility that the landlord may not realize that the rent is coming from a new person. I haven’t read TD’s case, but am familiar with the principal for which he cites it, and I agree that a landlord won’t be charged with knowledge that he has a new tenant unless the rent is somehow identified as coming from (or for) that tenant. I’m unaware of any requirement that the payment must be “direct” in some way. How are you using that term?

47

This always happens! I open a thread, head home, and the thing explodes. I apologize for my absence. :smack:

Some more details:

We’re in Davis, CA.

She started living in the apartment two months ago, most likely by an oral agreement with her cousin. She is not on the current lease.

When I skimmed the lease, I didn’t see anything regarding subletting - for or against.

She does not pay rent directly - management requires only one check per apartment. She and everyone else pays our friend W - our friend, on both the current lease and the new lease - and W pays. W is the only person who pays the rent. I doubt the landlord knows this girl exists.

From the old lease, only W is carrying over. If it makes any difference, the new lease is an entirely new document from the current one; there aren’t any amendments…

I’m pretty sure that the tenants were told about renewal but declined (most likely because only one of them were staying). In any case, this girl was notified several times over the past 6 weeks to sign the new lease, so it’s not as though she was never told her that the lease was up and that she’d need to sign the new one to stay.

W may have a made an oral agreement that this girl could stay for the summer; agreements beyond that - regarding either the duration of the stay or the amount of rent - have not been made.

As the majority of the current roomates were moving out, W asked my girlfriend and myself to move in. It was a pretty good deal, so we took up the offer.

–

Now here’s why the negotiations even initiated: rent for the new lease hadn’t been decided among us yet - W simply gave us a rough estimate and said we would all get together and decide the exact numbers. W also mentioned that this girl was probably going to be hard to negotiate with. So I looked up the floorplan and simply distributed the rent evenly across the square footage. The idea - which I thought was reasonable, objective, and agreeable - was that if you use more area, you’d pay more.

We met with her yesterday to “settle on the rent.” This is the first time we’ve spoken to her. I provided a few papers with the floorplan, calculations, and price breakdowns. After saying hello, the conversation essentially went like this:

TonyF: “So, let’s work this out! I looked at the floorplan of the apartment, took the square footage, and divided the rent equally among that area-”
Girl: “I see. Well, I made an agreement with my cousin when I moved in that this would be the rent I am paying.”
TonyF’s Girlfriend, Penchan: “Err, but he didn’t discuss this with us, and we’re going to be your roomates next year - not him.”
Girl: “But I chose this apartment because of the rent he promised me. And I don’t think changing the rent is fair. I don’t understand why it should change anyway.”
TonyF: “Well, you know, the lease will be new, and we’re new roomates and all…”
Girl: “It seems like you want to change my rent based on what I am paying - it’s not fair to change the rent because of what other people are paying, is it?”
TonyF: “It’s not like that - I mean, what I calculated is based on how much area you’re using, so if you use more, you pay more. That’s pretty objective, I think. Now, my original calculations were for <price>, but that includes your bathroom. But I don’t think it’s fair to include that when you won’t be using ours, so the other price is <lower price>.”
Girl: “But, I chose this apartment because it met my criteria of price and what was in it.”
Penchan: “I don’t mean to be rude, but you could move to one of the smaller rooms. We’d be happy to help you move your stuff, if you want.”
Girl: “Well, I have chosen my room and will not be moving. I chose that room because of the bathroom.”
… etc.
Girl: “… I’ll look at those documents and talk with my parents to see if they’re willing to pay this.”

The conversation ended without a resolution.

I might add that she was looking down her nose at us. Really - at the end of each sentence, she would pause and tilt her head back just slightly, and look down her nose at us. That and her unwillingness to compromise - to turn the tables and say it’s us being unreasonable - is why I’m not being sympathetic to her. I’d gone in expecting to make concessions, but what I got was a brick wall.

I thank everyone for their advice. (I guess this should’ve gone in IMHO. :smack: )

48

“principle”, not “principal”, of course.

I agree with those who have said that, as she described here, the girl that the OP is describing sounds like a bad roommate to have, even if the present problem can be worked out. In his shoes, I’d be considering ways to walk away from the entire situation, but that would require a work out of the landlord’s potential claim against me under the new lease.

And maizinger makes some excellent points, especially the one highlighted by Campion.

49

I should add that this thread has emphasized the fact that I’ll need to seek real legal advice, so I’ll be doing so on Monday.

Unfortunately, I’ve just been informed that W has a pretty good relationship with the girl’s cousin and would not want to kick this girl out because of it.

And here I am, already on the lease.

:smack:

Momma always told me not to have roommates…

50

Nah, you put it in the right place. Thanks for your clarifications. It sounds like you are a reasonable guy.

This still isn’t legal advice that you can rely on (see prior disclaimers), but you might be better off with a new fifth roommate. Is that feasible? Even if the girl (or her parents) cave now, she’s trouble in the future.

Even if it is, you still have the problem of getting her out, if she’s the person who’s prepared to dig in her heels, even in the face of the reasoned, unified opposition from all of the others involved.

51

I think it is important to add that the girl’s cousin who subletted her the room was the original person on the lease some 5 or so years ago. He and W lived together and are friends. But when W asked him to help mediate the situation, he said he didn’t want to get involved.

So if she was forced out, he’d be pretty pissed off, yet he won’t help us talk to her. W doesn’t want to force her out because she doesn’t want to hurt the girl’s cousin as they have been friends for 3 years.

But it is important to note that her cousin moved out, and W has been living there the longest (from the people on the new lease), so she has seniority. But the girl throws in our face “my COUSIN promised me this room for X amount”. We keep trying to shift the focus to the fact that rent is a community agreement. We have to all agree on how much rent each other pays because it’s not fair to dictate to the other housemates that you will only pay such amount, regardless of what others think. She told us we were being unfair and only want to benefit ourselves. Square footage seems fair to all of us except her because she likes paying less for the master bedroom, her own walk-in closet and her own bathroom.

Sigh. People these days…

52

Err sorry, that last post was by me. TonyF forgot to log off when he used my laptop :smack:

53

Just out of interest, does the law make any distinctions, in cases like this, about exactly how the money gets from the sublessor to the landlord? After all, the OP has told us that the rent is paid in the form of a single check. It is entirely possible that the landlord has no knowledge at all of her existence.

You say that “acceptance of rent from the subtenant is often the basis for a legal conclusion that the landlord has waived such a lease term.” That seems reasonable if the landlord accepted such rent knowing that it came from a sublessor. But if the landlord did indeed have no knowledge—and probably had no reason for thinking—that part of the rent was coming from someone not on the lease, surely it’s not reasonable to say that the landlord had some sort of implicit contract with a third party whose existence he was not even aware of?

54

I’m guessing you missed this:

(misspelling corrected in my quote)

55

Oh, and the OP’s information about the single check method of payment wasn’t provided until after the posts that you and I just quoted.

56

Indeed i did. Thanks.

57

After a re-read, I now think I understand what Monty had in mind with part (a) of his last post in this thread. I was confused by his reference to someone accepting rent who wasn’t the landlord or his agent. To a lawyer, “acceptance” has a specific meaning. (Well, only a few specific meanings, anyway, and only one that fits here.) If someone “accepts” a payment, that connotes the act of receipt (and really knowing receipt) by the party to a contract to whom the payment is owed.

Said another way: if I asked my sister to pay a dry cleaning bill for me, and handed her the cash to do do, and she took it, I’d never refer to her as “accepting” the payment. Only the dry cleaner (or someone connected to him) could do that.

So I was puzzled by Monty’s idea that a tenant would give rent to someone unconnected to the landlord who would “accept” it.

But now (I think) I see the situation he was driving at: one tenant paying another tenant, who then pays the landlord.

Coincidentally, I think I addressed his point in (a) when I answered the question he raised in part (b) of the same post.

58

Peter, I’m glad you added your two cents as it’s helped me “refine” my thoughts on the matter. And, yeah, I can see it from her perspective… but I don’t think I’m being unfair.

I actually don’t want to kick her out of the room so I can take it; our plan is to take over 2 of the smaller rooms - there are four rooms total - and turn one into a open homework/office area. (I plan on setting up the network hub there along with a printer and terminal for the net… I’m kinda excited about it!) I’d take the room if no one else wants to, but the other girl on the lease, W, would like it more than us.

The rent per person is going up (for now, at least) because there are a fewer number of people to pay for the apartment. I’m inclined towards kicking her out because her attitude is that she has no obligation to shoulder this increase in any way, and she so far refuses to do so because she doesn’t want to. I’m confident - with some evidence - that she’ll take this attitude with other issues. (She’s already territorial with the fridge and watches the TV incredibly loud, I’m told. She also disconnected the other roomates twice from the shared internet connection in order to have more bandwidth/“better connection”. I’m seriously anticipating that she’ll refuse to pay rent during a vacation on the reasoning that she wasn’t there - or refuse to pay a share of the DSL bill because “I don’t really use the internet” or somesuch.)

I could see how - from her perspective - we are essentially moving in and setting the rules. The difference between us and her, however, is that we have several reasons for the change (new lease, new roomates, new number of roomates), we are very willing to negotiate, and our rules have an objective basis. Her basis is that she was promised a price from her cousin - but her cousin has absolutely no involvement in the situation.

True, she was here before we were. But to be brutally honest, she didn’t do her homework and sign the lease… so technically now we were here first.

Frankly, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want her to leave when she won’t pay a rate that 1) a majority of the roomates agree with, 2) is based upon a pretty objective standard, and 3) is negotiable.

59

Random: Thanks. Yeah, that’s what I was getting at. Just because the woman is paying money to someone doesn’t mean she’s actually a lawful tenant of the residence.

TonyF: In the town where I attended university (Davis, California), there’s something called the Davis Model Lease which either 100% or as close to 100% as you can get so it no longer matters of the landlords use. The lease very clearly stipulates that it runs for one year and one year only, no longer and no shorter. It also clearly states that to renew the lease, each of the authorized tenants who wishes to remain in the leased premises must apply to the landlord or his/her agent during a specified time frame (usually around February). The new leases are signed shortly before the old leases expire. When I first encountered the thing, I thought it was the most asinine thing I’d ever seen. Then many horror stories such as the one in the OP came to my attention. I now understand why the draconian leases exist.

60

Actually, the more I hear, the less convinced I am that she’s the bad guy in this. Lets see your description.

I can see her point.

You want to take two rooms, but only pay for one. You expect her to contribute substantially towards your homework area. And why should she? If you want two rooms, why not pay for them yourself?

I’m glad you’re willing to negotiate. Maybe you could suggest she participates in this thread. I’d love to hear her side of the story. There are some very clever dopers who might be able to help you find a mutually satisfactory solution.

But just a few ideas you might like to try.

Instead of taking both rooms, just take one. Find another person to take the other and share the rent. You could do your homework in your own room, just like I had to do when I was a student.

Or you could indeed take both rooms, as you want, and pay based on area as you want. She pays for her one room with its bath, and you pay for your two rooms with its homework area. I get the impression that your two rooms are larger than hers, so you’d pay more that way. But then thats the objective basis you want.

That’s still a canard. Being in the majority doesn’t mean you are in the right. Four against one, or four thousand against one, thre lone dissenter is sometimes in the right. In this case, I have a certain amount of sympathy for her.
Just one final thought. You might succeed in kicking her out. But this might have unforeseen consequenses. It could result in you having an empty room that you can’t find anyone willing to take. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen. If you kick her out, you could end up paying her rent as well as your own. Maybe you’d be better off settling the matter, and just split the rent evenly.