My roommate and I were on separate leases for the past year that would be expiring next month. In December we signed a Lease Contract Renewal form to extend the lease for another year after it expires. My roommate has since moved out and believes that the contract is not valid because you can not take 2 people on separate leases and put them on to a joint lease without redrafting a new contract to be signed again along with the cosigners. Is this contract valid, is it a binding legal document? Or is it not a legal binding document and not valid because you can't put people on a joint lease like that?

Tough case here. Laws vary from state to state... but I'll say this: If the two of you signed together then you are probably bound together.

Sounds like your roommate left you hanging. Look close at the terms of the agreement that you signed together. If it says "jointly and severally" then the landlord can come after you both for unpaid rent.

Typically the law will say that you are responsible to read everything that you sign - to be sure that you understand your rights and obligations.

Your roommate will be in for a surprise when she finds that judges aren't very tolerant of nit picking over such technicalities, especially when the lease renewal didn't change anything other than your two names together. And at taxpayer's expense and the judge's time, etc. She owes. But the landlord can hold you liable for the whole rent, and evict you if you don't pay it.

The Lease Contract Renewal says not a thing on it about it being a Joint Contract it says it will extend the original contract. Does that mean I am on my own separate lease again for a year?

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of roomates on separate leases. The very nature of roommates is that you share the same space. So how would separate leases to the same space work?

I signed a lease in May and it was an individual lease for one room. She signed on in July on her own lease for the other room in the apartment.

The landlord made a mistake by not putting you both on one lease when you moved in. It's a shared apartment, not a rooming house.
Your roomie, however, accepted the renewal by signing it and living there for a few more months, giving weight in court to the validity of the renewal.
Whether you have to cover the entire rent for the apartment is similar - you accepted the renewal with both your names on it, also giving weight to the fact that you are both equally liable for the entire rent.
The landlord can sue either one of you, or just evict you for non payment. Or you should be able to sue her as a joint tenant who owes her fair share.
One lawyer on a NYC tenant site says this about roommates: don't have them. The laws don't really cover them very well, and it's often dealt with arbitrarily.

The renewal contract starts on June 5th. And on the paper it says that it extends the terms of the original contract, if the original leases were separate then wouldn't I just still be on my own separate lease until June of next year.

Back in December you signed a renewal that begins in June?

Sounds like you need to have a sit-down with the landlord to verify exactly what you want to do.

Now I'm confused - you signed a lease with the landlord. Who did your roommate sign the lease with? You or the landlord?

If the first lease was just you with the roommate leasing from you it isn't a joint lease into a single lease.

I signed a lease in May and it was an individual lease for one room. She signed on in July on her own lease for the other room in the apartment.

For one room, or for a room plus the common rooms in the apartment?

If it is the latter, it seems to me you are talking 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of the other. You have an individual lease for the entire apartment, subject to the implied right of the LL to let the other room to another tenant (including use of the common areas).

The monthly rent would be whatever it says in your "separate" lease.

My roommate signed her lease through the landlord separately, she had her lease with her monthly rent and I had my lease with my monthly rent

Yes, in December we signed a contract that says it would extend the terms of our original lease from June 6, 2011 to June 5, 2012 because they were offering us to have a monthly payment of only 5 dollars more where as if we waited to resign the lease the prices were going up.

The renewal does not start until June 6th so she has not stayed past the renewal start date, and refuses to pay now that she is gone.

The renewal does not start til June 6th so she has not stayed past the renewal start date, and refuses to pay now that she is gone.

She has not stayed past June 6th? That hasn't happened yet. Do you mean she didn't pay past the date last December when she signed the renewal?

It appears that the LL would be successful in suing the room-mate pursuant to the renewal agreement. LL should be able to recover whatever the room-mate agreed to pay for the separate room.

She has paid through May's rent. Now June starts the first month of the renewal contract and she is claiming that the contract is invalid and she is no longer paying. The apt office called me to tell me that I may be brought to court for what she does not pay, but nowhere on the renewal does it say anything about being on a joint lease now, so how can I be held responsible

The apt office called me to tell me that I may be brought to court for what she does not pay, but nowhere on the renewal does it say anything about being on a joint lease now, so how can I be held responsible [?]

We've covered that. If, as you say, the renewal doesn't commit you to pay anything more (other than additional months), you are not responsible for anything more.


Yes, in December we signed a contract that says it would extend the terms of our original lease
This was one document both of you signed? Could it be that LL is taking the position that by signing this you assumed and extended the RM's previous lease by reference?

Yes it was one paper that we both signed, if anything my roommate has her own extension for a year on the separate contract that she had signed is what I am hoping

This is a legal quagmire, having been done wrong by the LL when roomie moved in and again when renewal wasn't done with a new lease, yet all were signed by both you and your roomie. So do as suggested and sit down with them. We don't have copies of all the documents, but I can see a judge going either way IF it really is as you describe. I'd give more weight to the LL because you both signed the renewal and both lived together sharing the entire premises. That means that each of you is liable for all the rent. Talk it out, see if you can negotiate a compromise, and hurry to find a replacement.