I’m not a lawyer either, but when I had my first apartment, it was entirely possible for one person to take over another person’s portion of the lease without an entirely new contract (in fact, my portion of the lease ended before my roommates’ portions because of which person I was taking over for). I’m not sure how that would have worked if someone decided to leave mid-lease though. This was also Nova Scotia, so the laws probably aren’t the same.
I did have to have my parents co-sign that lease, and I’m not sure if I would have been able to find any apartment that would have let me rent without a co-signer at the time (college student, no job, no credit history, no renting history). I can understand why they wanted one–there was no reason to think that I wouldn’t flake out on them rent-wise.
I had to do this when I first moved to Columbia, mo to go to college. I was 28 years old I required a cosigner. It was all due to the fact that the apartment required I have a job for 6 months or more and make X% of the rent amount (I think it was 3X the rent amount). Since I was moving to a new town to go to college I did not have a job in that town, so my job I had for the last 2 years did not count since I would not be working there when I moved.
In short, the parental co-sign is an express modification of the lease, relieving each tenant of joint liability. So we are guaranteeing only our kids’ rent.
The contracts are written somewhat ambiguously, but I’m confident we’ll be able to hammer out any issues we have with the management company.
I see the thread is over, but to echo Epimetheus, I was
age 23
with a degree
a year of rental history
a good-paying job that was more than 4x the rent amount monthly
a car and good credit history
It didn’t matter, because every single complex in that town required either a parental cosign or three years renting references for people under 25.