My question involves a roommate in the State of: Washington
Good afternoon,
My question is regarding the removal of one of my roommates, with the intent to swap in another around the same time. My apologies in advance for the length; I wanted to be certain that the details were all accounted for.
We rent from a rental agency, and on the lease are three tenants, including myself, the problem roommate, and the third fellow. The six month lease ends on May 31, 2010 and I would not like to continue living with the problem roommate due to failure to pay utility bills (in my name, verbal understanding that all roommates would pay equally), hygene, social life, disrespect, etc. The other roommate is not a problem, and is largely uninvolved with the situation. I've mentioned my intent to remove the other, in passing.
I spoke with the rental agency today, who advised that the three roommates are treated as a whole (which I've run into before). If we all re-sign, we keep the place, if even one of us does not re-sign (because the other two are not going to be comfortable shouldering half of the rent, rather than a third), we lose the place (and if we still wanted to keep it, would have to move out, have it cleaned, re-apply, etc). My concern is that when I approach the roommate about discontinuing our arragement, he'll be noncompliant (and as I have no legal authority as "functioning head of household", he doesn't have to comply). As I was about to leave, she mentioned that while they could not do anything, -I- could, and that I would just need to serve him an eviction notice, with 20 days notice, that stated he was expected to vacate by May 31st.
As someone with no more legal authority than the roommate I need removed, this sounds like it won't hold up, legally. If he gets the notice to leave within 20 days, then the lease is up, and we don't sign the new lease stating that 1/2/3 of us will be responsible for rent for the next X months, we don't have a place to live. In summary, the rental agency has told me that the process is: serve roommate with 20 day notice, get roommate to sign paper forfeitting his share of the lease (we'd reimburse in cash, done this before), roommate would have to go to the rental agency and sign something there stating that he won't be living there anymore, -then- we can proceed with getting the next person in and on the lease.
Swapping a roommate out at the end of the lease is something I've become very familiar with, and have had to do it several times now, usually due to someone moving out of the area. This is the only time that I've needed to remove someone, and the only time I anticipate any problems.
Please let me know if anyone has any resources, suggestions, or solid legal advice.
Thank you!

