In jan 2001 my now husband signed an apartment rental lease with his best friend and his best friends mother co-signed for the apartment. When his best friend decided to move his girlfriend in, my husband moved in with me and my friend. He continued to pay his half of the rent and did not take his name off the lease. Then 15 days before the lease was to end there was a gas leak from the furnice and his best friend and his girlfriend were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning? ( we do not know exactly what they were treated for being that my husband was living with me and we cannot get his friends health records). The apartment complex paid for one night in a hotel and that was it. The last invoice for fixing the problem or checking up on it was 5 days after the lease was over. They had to move in with his parents when they paid rent for the entire lease. Because they were planning on staying in the apartment and renewing their lease without my husband, they did not give a 30 day notice at the end of Dec. the gas leak happened Jan 14 so they did not have the time to give a notice. The apartments want Feb rent, because they left in the middle of Jan. but did pay through the end of Jan. Two and a half years later we had bought a house and gotten married, we received a collection notice in the mail for $1100, the rent for feb 2002, we had not received a bill or anything before the collection notice in that 2 1/2 years, we asked the other 3 people on the lease and they had not gotten anything either. We went back and forth with the collection agency for the last 2-3 years. Just to be done with it we offered a third of what they wanted and told them to go after the other people on the lease. They would not accept it. Then we tried to arrange some type of payment arrangement and they would not do that either, the guy told me to get a loan. I asked why we were the only ones they were going after and they said we were the only ones with an asset. I don't understand why you need to have a co signer if they will go after anyone anyway. Then in Oct. 2005 they filed for a court date, so we hired an attorney because we do not know the law and needed help. We have always paid our bills and have great credit, this just did not seem fair. The attormey took our money and did not do anything for us. She filed an answer and then charged us $30 every time she left us a message on our machine, telling us that she did not know anything. She did tell us that from the time that the answer was filed the collection agency had 30 days to file for a court date. Now in Jan 2006 they set a court date for 04/2006. So now we are back to square one. We don't have anyone to trust, we are a young couple and I think that attorney saw us coming. Please help with any suggestions, this does not seem right, that they want the money at all, and they want it all from us when not only was there three other people that signed a lease but one was the co signer.

Most likely ( and can't tell without seeing the lease) it would have went to a month to month rental at the end of the lease unless a new lease is signed.
This is standard. So if no notice was given, yes the next months rent would be due. And they can try to collect the full amount from anyone that is a signer of the lease, So they can sue each party ( and normally go after the one with the most money) Often they may not have a forwarding address, so they send the notice to their apartment and the mail does not get forwarded. And often this gets turned over to a collection agency who does little on small amounts they doubt they cancollect, hoping somehting like this can happen, where you contact them because of the credit report.

Now if they want 1100 on a 4 year old debt, most likely had you offered them 400 or 500 dolalrs to settle the debt in full they would have taken it.
If not you contact the original land lord, who is the real debtor and unless he sold the debt, he would most likely be very glad to settle for the lower amount.

If the lawyer read over the lease, and if it read as a normal lease, he would have know you would have been responsible, but of course, if you go to court and they don't show up, you would will automatically. And this happens all the time also. And at times you can be wrong and still win if the other party is stupid or says something wrong.

As for as the gas leak, most likely you could have deducted a week rental off them maybe, if the gas was turned off, and the fumes cleared out, the apartment would be usable, just no gas turned on till it was fixed.

It may not be right, but it is the law, any person who signs is responsible for the full amount of the other parties don't pay.

Thank you for your time, we appreiciate it very much. I guess we will go to court and hope for the best.

Make sure you make any court appearance.They do have the right to go after any or all of you and you have the right to go after your former roomates for their share of this debt,or you could talk to them and see if they agree to work with you to clear this up.It has been my experience that most lawyers are totally useless in lease situations and help you little but get what they can,sad but true!Good luck!:cool: