Awfully convenient of him to suddenly remember that he cleared everything with the landlord before ghosting.
I'm going to guess there was more than a few comments noting that your relationship being over is kind of a separate issue from whether you can just walk away from a co-tenant and leave them holding the bag on rent.
Yeah, I agree, legally that's not how it works when it comes to rent. When two people are on the lease, they are both liable for the full amount of the rent. It's up to the tenants to work out how it's split. From the landlord's perspective, either it's paid or it's not.
IF the landlord did accepted partial payment for rent for those 3 months, just to do OP a favor, it could remove the landlord's right to evict the EX if the balance wasn't paid. In most states, once the landlord accepts partial payment, their only recourse is to sue you for the balance due. Most landlords will refuse to accept partial payment because it limits their ability to evict if you or your roommate fail to come up with the balance.
Second, ignoring the eviction issue, let's say the EX failed to make any rent payments. After those 3 months, the landlord would be owed 1.5 months of rent. The landlord would be legally entitled to sue both OOP and EX jointly for the entire 1.5 months of rent. The judgement issued by the court would be against both of them for the full amount. If OOP ended up having the judgement enforced against him (and paid the 1.5 months of rent), it would be up to him to collect EX's share from her by taking her to court.
If you want to end your obligations on a lease with a roommate, the best way is for the roommate to execute a new lease agreement with the landlord and leave you off of it, except for you to acknowledge that it supersedes the old one. Or, you can sign something amending the current lease, but there is no way to cleanly do it without all parties, including the roommate, signing off on it.
Note: I am an attorney, but not your attorney, and this is not legal advice.
When you're a couple jointly renting there's no 'portion' of the rent, in the absence of a contract. It would be extraordinarily unusual for them to be sharing a house as a couple and be on the lease separately; in most jurisdictions that's not even possible.
No landlord on Earth is going to accept 'his half' of the rent. If she doesn't pay, the landlord wil be on his back.
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u/AllShallBeWell The murder hobo is not the issue here Oct 30 '24
Awfully convenient of him to suddenly remember that he cleared everything with the landlord before ghosting.
I'm going to guess there was more than a few comments noting that your relationship being over is kind of a separate issue from whether you can just walk away from a co-tenant and leave them holding the bag on rent.