My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Michigan
My buddies and I were looking for a house near Michigan State. Three of them already goto Michigan State, I am going next year. I live three hours away. They called me one day and told me they had found a house, and told me the day their lease signing was and told me if I wanted in to come down and sign with them. After looking the lease over I decided I didn't want to sign, and so did one other friend of mine. We had put $1,000 down on the house to "reserve" it until our lease signing date. They told us the money was refundable. We each paid 250.00. After we told them the news the owner got real snooty and told us that they were going to keep our money.
I asked them what right they had to, since we didn't sign anything.
They then presented me with this;
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2262/imgfl3.jpg
Apparently after we had put the money down they called one of my potential roommates down and told him that he had to sign this to be a contact person so that they could contact him at any time with any news.
Do I really have to pay because he didn't read what he was signing?
Is there any way to get out of this? It just doesn't make sense that one person can sign for me when I'm 200 miles away. My name wasn't even on the lease for Christ sake.

