[RuthC]

Hi there

I am in a lease at the moment with another person who I can no longer get on with and want to move out. I spoke with the landlord and he is happy to remove my name from the lease and set up a new one for my room mate. My room mate will not sign the new contract and insists on me paying my share until the end of the lease. If we had broken the lease together we would have probably had to pay only 2 months rent but this way I'm going to pay a lot more, is there anything I can do? I wish I could get on with the person and work it out but it has gone to far and I'm miserable, please help.

[Fr_Chuck]

Not really, you are in a legal contract, so unless you can find someone to move in, or get your room mate to agree to take over the lease, you can be held liable for it.

[rockinmommy]

Well, my thought is to "convince" your roommate to sign the new lease (assuming it's a viable option, they can afford it, etc.). You know the saying "money talks". Otherwise I don't really see any way to get out of it.

You can always just bail out and hope neither one of them actually comes after you legally. But if they did, they'd have a case against you.

[stevetcg]

The other (less moral, I must admit) way is to convince your roommate that you aren't the person s/he wants to be living with anymore.

It can get messy, playing that kind of dirty game, but it can also work. The bottom line is to figure out how important leaving is to you and what lengths you are willing to go to in order to get one with your life, without a roommate.

Anecdotal: An ex girlfriend of mine decided that she wanted to make my life difficult when we broke up so refused to move out (wasn't on lease) so I invited a female friend of mine over (platonic), went behind a closed door for an hour, had her change into the shirt that I had been wearing and sent her out to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. Voilà - roommate convinced that I wasn't the person she wanted to be living with anymore.

Morally gray, but effective all the same.