Renting with roommates... can things de-escalate?
October 16, 2013 6:30 AM   Subscribe

Ok, so I'm living in Chicago with a few of my SO's old roommates from college. We've known them for less than a year and I can admit maybe we jumped into a year lease too soon. However, what recourse do we have right now?

We have quite a while to go until the lease is up. This is a two-parter, one we have been threatened to be evicted if we don't follow the rules regarding noise, and since we are living with a few partiers, we're hoping this doesn't happen. However, if we do get kicked out because the landlord terminated the lease, what exactly does that entail in Chicago? Do we have to pay? This would also presumably go on our rental history making it difficult to rent again (how difficult?) and I just want to take all the precautions if it actually indeed does come to pass so we're not homeless.

Ideally, I'd like to re-let the place so I also appreciate any advice on involving the management company and finding a suitable renter to take over the lease. Except, of course, it is shared housing, and renting a room and I'm not sure if too many people are willing to live with a bunch of strangers.

The second issue: Money. An account was set up to pay all of the household expenses, except the statements and account information are being asked for. Can anything be compromised by giving out this information? And it seems to be that the responsible people are being battled against the irresponsible people and they are currently winning. Meetings do not help as everything is all hunky dory and no one says any issues but then as soon as it's over, nothing changes and everyone is talking behind everyone else's back. Really petty stuff, yet this is a real-life situation that needs to be resolved and I hate feeling the stress and like I'm at the mercy of the will of a bunch of juveniles. How do we command respect in this situation in a way that what we say goes because it is in the best interests of the group at large? Especially when we're venturing into a take-sides situation that we are not likely to win.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'd simply say, "This isn't working out. We'll be happier in a situation on our own. Do you know of anyone who might come in and rent our room? If so, we'd like to make that happen."

I'd then find replacement roommates and be off.

Also, discuss with the landlord to see how flexible he/she will be about letting you off the lease and letting your replacements on.

Or, you could approach the landlord and say, "SO and I are not happy in our situation and we want out. What penalties would you impose if we were to request being let out of the lease?" It may be that the Landlord wants you ALL out and would welcome a way of circumventing the eviction process.

As for statements and account info. Depending on who is the responsible person for the accounts, just make copies of the information, blanking out actual account numbers and provide it.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 6:57 AM on October 16, 2013 [3 favorites]


Except, of course, it is shared housing, and renting a room and I'm not sure if too many people are willing to live with a bunch of strangers.

I don't know if things are significantly different in Chicago, but most houseshares I've lived in have involved me taking a room in a houseshare that has a vacant one. Craigslist/Gumtree is full of 'room-mate wanted'/'rooms to let' ads. You may have an issue if they are noisy enough for eviction to be a possibility - I personally would not want to live with partiers - but you may be lucky enough to find someone who doesn't mind. Most young people are prepared to live with strangers for a time as it's usually the only way to a halfway-affordable place to live.

The main issue is whether your lease allows you to change the names. I'm not from the US so I can't advise on how it works, but in most cases in the UK you can do this for a fee. You'll also have to let the prospective tenants know how it works, the notice period, how much of the deposit they need to pay etc?

The other option is that you speak with the landlord and let him know that the other housemates are noisy enough for eviction to be threatened and that it is not a problem you can resolve between you.
posted by mippy at 6:57 AM on October 16, 2013


Okay. This is sort of a jumble.

1. You're the lease-holders, yes? Then you have the right to say what goes with your sub-tenants.

2. There is no "rental history" really. Leases don't get reported to a centralized authority or anything like that. The situation can cause awkwardness if you want to rent elsewhere and you are asked for a reference to your previous landlord, etc. You can work around it.

3. Who is asking for the household expense information? What could be compromised by giving that information, since it is everyone's money, and the bills should be made available to all people involved? (Or is the landlord asking for that? That would be weird.)

It seems like the situation is this:

* There are subtenants of yours who are causing noise complaints.

* They need to be told that noise is a violation of lease terms and they will be given 30 days notice if they incur a noise complaint.

* Giving up the lease entirely is a negotiation with management. Different landlords will want different things.

But if you are all on the lease together you have a few options. One is collaborating with the landlord on eviction of the whole household in exchange for a good written reference, if you need that. That's shady but sometimes necessary.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:57 AM on October 16, 2013 [1 favorite]


I don't know how you should resolve your issues with your roommates, but I am happy to tell you a little about eviction works in Chicago. You can also read through the VERY GOOD guides at ILAO.

This rundown assumes YOU THE POSTER are on the lease and it assumes that the noise complaints violate your written lease. If you are not on the lease, or there is no written lease, the process will vary. This is not legal advice--it's just a description of the eviction process in Cook County.

Violation of terms of lease is a 10-day notice eviction in Cook County. Basically, any one of you that is on the lease receives the 10-day notice (either in person or via registered mail) and you have 10 days to move out (or cure the lease violation, which does not really apply in this case). Generally, you can't be made to pay for your own eviction and you may be owed refunds of deposits.

If you are not out in 10 days, your landlord can (and almost certainly will, as you've been warned once), file an eviction complaint in the housing court. Practically speaking, you'll have between 30 and 120 days from the filing of the complaint until the sheriff shows up to evict you--it really varies a lot, depending on how crowded the courts are. But because you are dealing with an eviction that's not related to rent or foreclosure, you're not going to get a lot of sympathy from the court.

You (or any resident) will receive the Complaint and the Summons, which will tell you when you need to be in court. If you don't show up to defend yourself, a default judgment ordering eviction will be entered (you'll be sent a copy). Judgment of eviction typically gives tenants 7 to 14 days to move out. Your landlord can do nothing during those 7-14 days and your landlord cannot force you to move out, nor remove your belongings. Only the Sheriff can. The Sheriff's office in Cook County really hates this job and they sometimes use eviction backlogs as political leverage but don't count on that.

If you do show up, you can possibly buy a little time to present a defense or get a short continuance to seek legal advice. Depending on how skilled your management company is at dealing with evictions, you're not likely to get much more than a week. You'll have to go back to court to defend the complaint and if the landlord has documented the noise complaints and the noise complaints are a violation of your lease, judgment ordering eviction will be entered and you'll have 7-14 days to move out.

Evictions for nonpayment of rent are reported to credit bureaus--these are the most likely to impact later attempts to rent. However, the eviction will be a public record and some management companies will access those records and not lease to people who have been evicted previously. Evictions from houses which have been foreclosed are typically sealed to protect tenants.

Generally speaking, there are not many defenses to breach of lease terms. You can ask the court to send you to mediation, which might help you get your housemates evicted, but not you. Might not. And that sounds like it would not help.

Housing court is a zoo--dress nicely anyway. You'll go to the Daley Center (get there 30 minutes before your scheduled court time if it's the morning; 10 minutes or so if it's the afternoon). Go through the metal detector. Phones are still allowed in Daley, but anything that could be a weapon (like a padlock) isn't. They have tiny (sandwich vending machine sized) pay lockers available. You'll go to your courtroom and find your case on the sheet posted outside the courtroom. Not the "line number" next to your case. Go into the courtroom, stand in line for the clerk, tell her your line number and your name and that you are the defendant. The judge will come out and give a speech about how housing court works. Wait until your case is called. When it's called, stand up, say "here", then walk to the bench.

Cook County judges don't mind being called Judge, but you can't hand them anything directly. Don't interrupt them or anyone else--trust me, housing court judges will give you your turn to speak. Judges don't have a lot of latitude to help you, but they will answer your questions about what's happening or what's happening next, if you're polite. Don't be afraid to ask for more time.
posted by crush-onastick at 7:14 AM on October 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


one we have been threatened to be evicted if we don't follow the rules regarding noise, and since we are living with a few partiers, we're hoping this doesn't happen

So tell your roommates to be quiet; nightly (or even weekly) loud drinking sessions are not some sort of right. They can go to a bar and be loud, or they can find other uses for their time.

if we do get kicked out because the landlord terminated the lease, what exactly does that entail

There is no such thing as a rental history, although future places may ask for references, i.e. names of past landlords they can call to confirm you were responsible renters. Since it's not clear that you are, this will indeed be a hurdle. That said, the main thing landlords care about in my experience is that they will get paid, so being able to show gainful employment is relatively more important, I think.
posted by deadweightloss at 7:15 AM on October 16, 2013


This post is a bit confusing, so you may get more, and more helpful, responses if you ask a mod to update it with more clear information about who is doing what. For example, you write: "An account was set up to pay all of the household expenses, except the statements and account information are being asked for." Are you the one who set up the account and your roommates are asking for an accounting? I think it is only fair that if they are paying into an account for shared expenses, they should be able to see where the money is going. You ask how to command respect from people who aren't taking the situation seriously, and one way to move towards this is to treat them with the respect you want in return, such as by being open and transparent about the household finances. Try to cultivate an atmosphere of trust and cooperation rather than secrecy and autocracy.

Ideally, I'd like to re-let the place so I also appreciate any advice on involving the management company and finding a suitable renter to take over the lease. Except, of course, it is shared housing, and renting a room and I'm not sure if too many people are willing to live with a bunch of strangers.

Are you saying that you want to move out, and sublet your bedroom to someone else who will live with your current roommates? A lot of this depends on how your lease is structured. Are you all on the lease equally?
posted by payoto at 7:40 AM on October 16, 2013 [6 favorites]


FWIW, in my anecdotal experience, the success rate for couples sharing housing with one member of the couple's friends/previous roommates is somewhere between "a bit lower than most other arrangements" and "pretty damned bad."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:40 AM on October 16, 2013 [2 favorites]


OP, please come back and clarify your post; I can't make head or tails of much of it, but I can tell you that what your lease says is very important to how we can answer your question.
posted by sm1tten at 3:33 PM on October 16, 2013


Update from the OP:
The account has been set up by my SO and it is under their name. It is not a situation where secrecy or autocracy is the goal, merely protecting ourselves from less than mature individuals that might want to squander the finances (i.e. beer every weekend, etc.) when it is specifically meant for expenses such as utilities. Would it be in the best interests of making sure bills are paid if they are transferred in SO's name? I'm concerned that an amount higher than what is due will be asked for and that the other person would pocket the difference with no one the wiser. Everyone is on the lease except for one person and we have entertained the idea of having that person take over our portion and finding a place on our own. But that is not financially feasible right now and SO wants to resolve the situation and avoid quite literally, the costs. It's hard to gauge the situation because they are a bit petty and passive aggressive and I can never truly know if they are being honest or talking behind our backs, so I can't accurately assess if mediation or conflict resolving conversations are actually effective. Great responses so far, I appreciate all of the information.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:52 AM on October 17, 2013


"I'm concerned that an amount higher than what is due [for bills] will be asked for and that the other person would pocket the difference with no one the wiser."

When I last lived in shared housing, the folks who recieved the bills agreed to post them in a common area so everyone could see them (if they so chose). Posing this as a policy, tactfully, could help introduce enough transparency to mitigate the opportunity to skim from the account.
posted by onshi at 12:10 PM on October 17, 2013


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