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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    LA
    Posts
    2

    Default Housemate Wants Rent on Verbal Lease

    Hi! I'm hoping someone can give me advice with this problem:

    After networking through some people, I found a place to live with these girls I didn't know. Because of my situation, I was desperate. (I was affected by Hurricane Katrina.) They had agreed to let my boyfriend and I live in their rented house for 1/3 of the rent. I was supposed to be on the lease, but never was. It's been 7 weeks! A lot has happened between the two roommates and I. They do drugs and are very rowdy. I do not feel safe and comfortable in the house. I just told them I will be out before the end of the month. I am paying what I owe for first month's rent and the rest of utilities for the current month. They are forcing me to pay for another two months since I was supposed to stay until the lease ends. Since I'm not on the lease, am I obilgated to pay any of the rent after I've moved out? I don't want to pay, but I don't want to be sued later on either.

    Thanks, Jeannie

  2. #2

    Default

    "A verbal agreement is worth the paper it's written on."

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Behind a Desk
    Posts
    98,846

    Default Forcing Additional Payment

    How are they forcing you to pay an additional amount? (Or do you mean that they are demanding the additional amount?)

    You are a month-to-month tenant, and can leave the apartment on a month's notice with no further obligation. Since they apparently accepted your notice to quit, it is unlikely that they could successfully sue you for more than the balance of the month's rent from the date you gave your notice.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    LA
    Posts
    2

    Default

    Thanks for the repsonse so far!

    The roommates are demanding that I pay for another few months until the semester lets up because I would be screwing them over if I didn't do so. Right now I'm worried about myself. Their arguement is that they let me in with the "goodness of their hearts," but they have driven me out with drama, cussing me out, and bullying me. There has been two incidents where I had to call the cops onto the property because of one of their drug dealer friends became violent and threatening to everyone in the household and another backed into my car in a separate incident. My reasoning is that despite our initial agreement to live together through whenever the lease lets up, the new lease was never drawn to have my name on it and the negative circumstances all together broke the agreement. I have met the landlord who lives across the street, and he doesn't like me as it is. (I randomly park on his precious grass.) He's old and doesn't realize all this is going on in the house. He'll be notified tomorrow though.

    I'm definitely giving them exactly what I owe them for the rent and utilities I used. I just refuse to give them more for what I will not be utilizing and be sued for it.

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