[Chexter]

My girlfriend and I have been living together in the same apartment complex for 8 years. For the first 4 years we paid monthly rental payments per the lease agreement. For the last 4 years we have paid no rent as she was hired as the property resident manager and our residence was included as part of the compensation. No contract for employment, terms or conditions was ever signed. For whatever reason, we were not told, her position was recently terminated. I was offered a lease agreement but she was told that she was not welcome on the premises. I signed the lease. She is not on the lease. They gave her 30 days to vacate the premises. Nothing has been in writing. 1) Can they make her leave by taking action against me or do they take action against her? 2) Does Alabama recognize our status as common law with regards to resident status as opposed to common law that would be recognized as a legal marriage? We have not proclaimed ourselves as man and wife and have not filed joint income taxes or have had joint checking or credit card accounts. The lease recognizes spouses. I don't think it's fair but what I think and the law are two different things. I signed the lease because I am not in a position to move at present and thought that cooler heads would prevail and the landlord would change their mind. This has apparently not been the case.

[Fr_Chuck]

You have to meet these requirements for an AL common law marriage.

Alabama Common Law Marriage

The state of Alabama recognizes common law marriages and will deem a man and woman married if they: 1) hold themselves out to be married (i.e. tell others that they are married, use the same last name, call each other husband and wife, file joint tax returns, etc.); 2) have the capacity to marry (the mental ability to agree to the marriage – the ability to understand the nature of marriage and a spouse’s responsibility towards his or her partner once the marriage has been entered into); 3) an agreement to be husband and wife; and 4) consummated the marital relationship.

But the other issue is that for what ever reason, they can also give her a tresspass warning not to come back on the property, so it may be illegal for her to return.
Even as a wife if she is refused to be allowed on the property, it may be grounds for you to break the lease. But if they have legal grounds to order her off property,** you never did say why or what happened to cause this.

You appeared to think you could get her to stay sort of in the back door by you leasing, this appears and I would agree will back fire. Unless you were presenting yourself as married before, you can't all of a sudden say you were.
If you did use same last name, file joint tax returns, you may have a case to common law marriage.

[Fr_Chuck]

Never count a business out, I had Turner Field ( the Braves baseball field) as a customer, well lost it after a run in with one of the owners. Well a year latter they called me, since they were not getting the service they wanted, I went back in, with a better contract than before.

Marta, the City bus and rail service, I was actually escorted off their property by the police. Well 6 months latter they are my largest account and I keep them for years till I left that position.

[Chexter]

Chuck, I guess what you're saying is that it's either common law or not and this pertains to any and all matters and not just for a matter concerning residency status, correct? I guess I was hoping that no, we're not common law in the true sense and meaning of the term but we were as relates to matters of lease law having resided under one roof for over 8 years.

As relates to the termination, from what I understand, the new manager has already been talking to some of the residents about why she was terminated (I believe this is another legal issue altogether but don't know what to do about it). It had more to do with her letting some of the residents "slide" on late charges and the owner of the property was not happy about that.

Thank you for taking the time to address my questions/issues.