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So me and 2 roomates live together in a 2 bedroom apartment. Me and one other roomate, lets call him bob, are on the lease because they company wont allow room sharing and we wanted it cheap. Third roomate, well say dave, is not on the lease, but of course pitched in a third of the rent to make it equal. Now dave just decided he wanted to move out 2 months early. This is increasing my rent by $100 a month because I had my own, and bob's by $200. Now since he is not on the lease we legally can't stop him or anything, but we got this place together with the consensus that we are staying for a year together.
Now bob does not care that much, he gets substantial money and is about the most easy going guy I know, nothing ever bothers him. Me on the other hand, I don't get a whole lot of money and rent going up $100 especially in the summer when I want to use that money to have fun with and what not, is not cool. So I am heavily considering telling him since you are leaving early, and sticking us with the bill, from your share of the deposit, I am going to deduct the $200 that you are screwing me out of, and bob can do the same if he so wishes. I don't want to have to do the asshole move, but he is going to bitch hard so I bet I will have to say that the lease is in our name, we get the money, and there really isn't anything you can do about it, also if you were on the lease and left early your deposit is automatically kept.
Am I in the right here? Bob agrees that I am, but what are your thoughts, and best way to go about saying it?
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Don't tell him outright "I am going to take this money from the deposit", just sit him down and explain everything to him. If he did indeed agree to stay the whole year then, and he doesn't agree to pay rent till the end of the year, then you can say"I'm going to take this money".
It depends how well you know the guy, but having some verbal agreement like that is never really a good idea.
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I think this is less about being right or wrong and more about whether you value dave more than money. When dave announced he was moving out early and you asked him "what about your share of the rent?", what did he say?
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On May 23 2012 07:44 JeeJee wrote:
I think this is less about being right or wrong and more about whether you value dave more than money. When dave announced he was moving out early and you asked him "what about your share of the rent?", what did he say?
See that's the big issue for me. Before we moved in, Dave was a great friend of mine, and I never wanted to live with him cause Bob and I are messy and like to party, Dave likes it super clean and is pretty anti social, but he really wanted to live with us, but he knew what he was getting into. For the last few months Dave has been a huge asshole to me, just plain ignoring me and when I leave the room I hear him mutter "Fuck Balgrog that piece of shit," and things of that sort. But when we are out at parties he is nice and hangs out with me, so I am really hoping that it will go back to how it was, and we also play rugby together. So I definitely see the whole money or friendship thing but as I said I don't have much money, and it's hitting me in the wallet in summer where I want to use that money to go have fun and what not.
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To be honest, these kinds of things can make or break a relationship. If he is truly your friend, than I would disregard the money aspect (even if it will affect your summer fun).
Just be warned that your friendship is at risk.
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This is why you make written aggrements beforehand. Yes, even among friends.
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you got to tell dave straight up what the situation is and what his options are. a friendship, like any other relationship, is a two sided affair and he has to think hard about how much he values it. this is real life and money is no joking matter.
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He's talking behind your back. You have to confront him about those issues, see his reaction.
From there, you decide whether he's a friend worth keepng.
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There's an old saying in spanish: "Las cuentas claras mantienen la amistad" or, "Settled debts keep friendship alive" or something of that sort.
Things need to be pretty clear between friends, otherwise horrible things happen. For example, if a friend owes me some money, I don't really care if they pay or not, I'm a laid back person, but I have good friends who really care about it, and if I owe them money I always pay as soon as possible, that's how it's always been settled between us.
Every friendship has to work under clear conditions, otherwise there will be trouble.
On May 23 2012 09:05 Sava90 wrote:
This is why you make written aggrements beforehand. Yes, even among friends.
I also agree with this. Hell, even with your family you make written agreements.
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Dunno, it sounds like you/Bob were set to move into the place without David, but he just ended up moving in at the end. Unless you/Bob decided to move into the 2 bedroom apartment because of Dave, I don't really think he should be made to pay for the entire year. Because you/Bob would be paying the for the amount of rent you originally intended anyway.
But otherwise, it depends. I would personally just sit down and talk to him. If this small talk is enough to break the friendship, then it wasn't really worth much to begin with. In my experience people tend to converge on some kind of solution so long as the discourse is civilized (i.e., meeting halfway at $50 or something). Too much drama here imo. Just talk to him, then move on.
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On May 23 2012 09:05 Sava90 wrote:
This is why you make written aggrements beforehand. Yes, even among friends.
^^ THIS. I had a horrible experience with this once. What did I learn? make them write on a sheet of paper, that way it is %100 legally binding. As it stands, if he's made payments to the rent and the landlords were ok with this arrangement he could be legally required to pay the amount. It's part of a verbal contract, which in most cases would not be enforceable due to the Statue of Frauds or at least very very hard to prove, but due to the fact that he has already committed by partial performance, it may be legally binding. Much of this is evidence based however (emails, check stubs, etc...). If a lawyer wants to clarify this better. 
I would however not suggest going this route, as it's a dubious one at best. It's a small amount, and is it really worth the tension or fuss over it, or is the friendship worth it? I probably wouldn't risk it if he's a friend. You could mention to him that it would be putting a burden on you because he's leaving early, but idk, this is something you are going to have to gauge.
Edit: actually what a176 said is good advice
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Just my two cents from my past experiences:
-A few years down the road, after you finally settle down and buy a house, none of those people will even be your friends, much less in your circle of acquaintances. You have leverage (as I understand it, you have some of his $$$ as part of the deposit) and I would most certainly use it.
-Obviously, I disagree with what most people are saying about "how much you value your friendship." Leaving you hanging like that already speaks volumes about how much he values you. For all we know, he might very well let you keep his $$$. Personally, when I had to do the same thing to my most recent roomate because I was buying a house; I told him upfront that he could live with me for free up until when the lease was supposed to end anyways. I thought about him enough to already have considered that before bringing it up.
-Another part of this actually focuses on him. If he wants to make those kinds of commitments and run away whenever he pleases, you're enabling him to do that for the rest of his life. In a twisted way, making him pony up is teaching him that there are costs to breaking commitments.
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The situation in my house-share is that if you move out you need to find someone to permanently take your room or you have to keep paying that rent. Now in your case it sounds like you're actually sharing a room.. in which case its highly unlikely you'd be ok to have a stranger in the room right?
If that's the case then this really needs to be resolved simply with you guys sitting down and talking about not just the money but also your RELATIONSHIP.
From what you've said you feel it's his fault for choosing to move in with you that he started to grow bitter with your messier living conditions. Now he even mutters curses at you under his breath and ignores you all the time.
What you need to do is communicate. You need to be willing to give ground and speak fairly and communicate your feelings clearly. I think you should ask him to have a "meeting" where you can sit down and discuss him moving out. Once he agrees and you guys start you should probably point out that you feel sorry that you guys have grown apart being forced to live each other, and that you guys don't click as friends when forced together so long. You should point out that you feel sorry that it went this way and you hope once he moves out you can mend your friendship.
Once you make clear that you don't just hate him and look forward to your future friendship, then breaking the matter of the rent should be a bit easier. You need to explain to him that you can't afford to cover his rent for 2 months or you'll have even less money to enjoy yourself over the expensive summer. Discuss the possiblity or lack of possibility of someone taking his room, and the fact that he committed to staying in the house for 1 year and you will be severely left in the lurch if he just bails now and doesn't cover the rent while he's gone.
If you try to say all this clearly and calmly and he responds negatively and refuses to pay rent or come to some agreement then he's a piece of shit and you should just take it from the bond as his name isn't on the lease. Hopefully though he will see reason and you guys can sort something out.
I've been in similar situations and tbh the hard part is actually sitting there and treating a conversation with someone you live with as a "meeting" and being a mixture of formal and well-spoken. It will feel very out of place at first but in my experience it will resolve the issues at hand.
Hope this helps you out. Good luck!
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You have to stand up for yourself. Just tell him "look dude you agreed to pay your share for the year, if you break that commitment then we're going to take the difference out of your deposit". You won't save the friendship by letting him walk all over you.
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Just don't say 'there's nothing you can do about it'.
I think it would only make the situation worse when he's aware that you control his deposit.
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First of all, was it a clear agreement when you got the place or was it just assumed by everyone that you'd stay there for the whole year? I lived with 2 friends and when we got a our place we decided that we at least should live there for 6 months and if you wanted to move out after that you had to give 2 months notice(since we had a cancelation time of 2 months). Since everything was clear from the start it all worked fine when one of us wanted to move(after 1.5 years) and we terminated our lease.
Secondly I think some people are going overboard with lawyers and written agreements, I mean would you really hire a lawyer to get 200$ from your friend? I guess it all comes down to how well you know your friend. I also think that threatening to take his deposit should be that absolute last way out because people tend to not respond well to that.
Now that first thing you should do is talk to him, everything isn't black and white, shit happens perhaps he has a good(or understandable) reason to why he wants to move. If you discuss everything maybe you can find a solution together, e.g. he can find someone else to stay there for those last two months then you get your money and he can move out.
Worst case scenario is he's a dick and you lose 200$, but it's better to not assume that before you've talked that matter through, just my 2 cents.
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EPT
