Our lease is up for renewal on Nov. 1. We live in Brooklyn. I didn't know my roommate well when we moved in together. Without going into details, she has some problems and I don't want to continue to live with her. But I want to keep the place, take over the lease in my name and then find a new roommate. But she doesn't want to leave. There are a lot of things I could tell the landlord about her (drinking, irresponsible behavior, psychological problems, etc.) but I don't want it to turn ugly. If we are both on the lease and both want to stay, how can one of us renew the lease without the other one? Does the landlord get to choose which one of us gets to stay? If I can't get her to leave, then I will move out (I really do love the place though), in which case I want to give one month's notice and break the lease, moving out Sept.1. Is this legal? I would be breaking my one years commitment as signed in the lease. Please advise. Thank you.

You can't break the lease without suffering the consequences which could include being sued for the remainder of the term of the lease.

The landlord has no obligation to accept either of you, or both of you, it really is not their problem, the two of you need to work it out.

You can provide the required notice, at the end of the lease, and leave it up to the roommate to figure out how to pay the rent by themselves, or to find someone else to move in with them.

What ever you do, when you notify, be sure to send it via certified, return receipt requested so you have a record of dates sent if problems come up later.

But if we can't "work it out" and we both want the other one to leave, who gets to keep the place when the lease is up? Is that up to the landlord?

No, it is up to you two.

The landlord has no obligation to choose one of you over the other.

That is not to say that they may not try.

Without a valid reason for not letting either of you stay, they are open to discrimination charges by the one they tell to go.

That doesn't make sense. If we both say to him, "I want the place," he has to either choose one of us or find someone new. Obviously he is not obligated to renew with either of us, but how can I influence him to choose me without telling him a bunch of very personal stuff about my roommate? I don't want to be nasty, I just want her to move out.

Welcome to the Adult lifestyle.

Have you heard of the Rolling Stones?

They had a big hit once, called "You can't always get what you want".

That song, describes your current situation.

She can't make you leave, you can't make her leave, and the landlord could care less as long as the rent is being paid.

How much energy do you plan to spend on this? How much worry is it worth to you?

I say give your notice, prior to the end of the lease, and find another place.

If you just decide to do that, all this other clutter goes away and frees your mind to attend to other more important issues.

Adult lifestyle? I am an adult. I guess I misunderstood. I thought this was a site to ask and answer questions, not insult people's intelligence. I don't need a lecture, just wanted an answer to my question.

I kept the question brief, because you don't need to know all the sordid details. To anyone who else who might have some advice for me: Thank you. I appreciate your time.

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Originally Posted by girl5000

Our lease is up for renewal on Nov. 1. We live in Brooklyn. I didn't know my roommate well when we moved in together. Without going into details, she has some problems and I don't want to continue to live with her. But I want to keep the place, take over the lease in my name and then find a new roommate. But she doesn't want to leave. There are a lot of things I could tell the landlord about her (drinking, irresponsible behavior, psychological problems, etc.) but I don't want it to turn ugly. If we are both on the lease and both want to stay, how can one of us renew the lease without the other one? Does the landlord get to choose which one of us gets to stay? If I can't get her to leave, then I will move out (I really do love the place though), in which case I want to give one month's notice and break the lease, moving out Sept.1. Is this legal? I would be breaking my one years commitment as signed in the lease. Please advise. Thank you.

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Ok. For now, with the current lease terms, you're both on the hook for the remainder of the lease. As long as the rent is being paid, the landlord would be foolish to get involved. This way he has the 2 of you on the hook for the rent. If he went to just you, or just her, statistically his chances of collecting just went down. And, even if there was a valid reason to evict her (lease breach, etc), he'd have to "evict" both of you.

Have you tried to make it "worth her while" to move out? I guess at this point it comes down to how badly you want her gone.

As far as what to do when the current lease is up and you want to re-sign with just you on the lease... you'll just have to convince the landlord that it's in his/her best interest. You and roommate will have to give notice to terminate current lease, and then he can sign a new one with just you. He may even be willing to draw it up in advance. How to force her to physically leave when the current lease is up may involve an eviction. It's just kind of a weird scenario.

As a landlord, I'll give you my opinion... if you came to me with this scenario I'd sit down with all 3 of us and see if we could reach an easy understanding. If not, if it became complicated, I'd probably cut my losses and give both of you notice to be out coinsiding with the end of the lease. Usually when convoluted roommate situations start getting weird and troublesome is when I'm likely to have problems. It's simply not worth the time. Easier to just move on to the next renter. I think just stating what you want to do and leaving a decision up to the LL is all you can do. If you were to bring up problems with your roommate, personal stuff, etc it's likely to seem like a desperate, scheming "plot".

Overall, progunr is right. You may not have liked the answer, or the wording used, or whatever, but basically he's right. You may not be able to redeem this situation to your satisfaction. Might be easiest/least expensive/least stress to just move on down the road.

Thanks, rockinmom.