In most jurisdictions, a lease agreement comes with an implied warranty of habitability. If the filth is bad enough (vermin, toxic mold, possible health hazards etc), it could provide a basis for breaking the lease. But if it’s just a matter of performing a good cleaning, probably not.
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So the verbal lease that has not yet involved money exchange is for summer only? Just want to be clear on that.
Before moving in, your son should ask the landlord for a walk-through, and document/photograph any current conditions, to avoid being charged by the landlord at some point for things that are broken, dirty etc. Otherwise he will be included in charges for damage he did not do.
Regarding the summer: he is not legally bound but has made a promise. He did see the apartment so he cannot say that the “filth” is unexpected. I think he needs to pay until he finds a replacement. If he had not seen the apartment, I would feel differently.
Regarding September: In our experience, you can generally break a lease if you find a replacement. Check the wording of the lease. I understand there are friends involved. But if he wants to leave the September lease, there is still plenty of time to find a replacement and his friend could leave too.
Alternatively, yes, it can be cleaned and fumigated. Habitability is a factor. Most landlords will fumigate an apartment because the pests tend to spread and they like to get it under control asap. But in some buildings, it is ultimately impossible to get rid of all cockroaches (or silverfish).
I don’t know where this apartment is. You seem to be referring to ONE cockroach. In areas of Boston where I rented in my 20’s and 30’s, there were swarms of cockroaches, and we just lived with it. Certain areas of Boston have a lot of cockroaches due to the way the areas of the city were originally under water and were filled in. (We were very clean otherwise!)
Is this “filth” redeemable? I mean, normal cleaning? Cleaning service? Is he worried about the lack of cleanliness only or also the living habits of current roommates? Will the conditions change with different roommates?
How much can your son do to improve livability of the apartment for either the summer or the fall? Is the situation impossible to improve? How valued are these friends?
To sum up, he is not legally bound for the summer but made a promise, and I think he should take responsibility for filling the spot and paying for any gap. For the fall, he can certainly find a replacement. Next time, one hopes he takes photos and looks hard before making commitment, but many of us, even as older adults, have found problems in apartments after signing. I had to break a lease due to mold myself, last year, and the landlord was fine with it. I did give 30 days notice.
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Yes, correct.
When he saw the apartment, it was on a dreary winter day and he was with his friend, the one who currently lives there. This was with a view to renting in September. He saw his friend’s room, which was spotless. He was unable to see the bedroom he agreed to sublease.
To be fair to my son, cockroaches come out at night, and he didn’t see obvious signs of filth, but he wasn’t looking for them. I guess he assumed the apartment must be fine if his friend was living there. And also to be fair, the roommate he is subletting from would have left regardless of whether my son was coming in. The roommate would still be liable for the rent if my son hadn’t come. I do think my son should at least pay for a month of rent though, because he has moved in, after all.
Yes, I think when the two oldest tenants move out, the landlord must get the place fumigated and professionally cleaned. Then it would be fine. And ugh, cockroaches make my skin crawl. I know everyone has to deal with them at some point.
Be careful about assuming this. As a landlord of both residential and commercial property, the only time I do this is at lease turnover. In a situation like this where there is one lease but tenants keep moving in and out of the same unit without the unit ever being completely vacant, it’s difficult to have a “turnover” cleaning/repair period.
IMO, new subletters taking pictures of the condition when previous/current subletters move in and out is pointless. There is one overriding lease. The condition is judged when that lease is enacted and when that lease ends, not at multiple points along the way as the main lessee sublets and resublets various bedrooms.
If your son moves in with 3 months remaining on the lease (and pays a deposit to the roommate holding the main lease) he should be aware that his deposit may be withheld to pay for damage already in the unit prior to his moving in. The landlord won’t know or care if the damage occurred the day before or the day after your son moved in - IMO, the landlord should not care because it is immaterial. Subletting is a very tricky business, and I’m sure the landlord’s lease with with the original leaseholder addresses this in some detail.
If your son intends to occupy this very same unit into the fall but will be signing a new lease directly with the landlord, he should be aware the landlord may not intend to do a complete inspection of the premises and assessment of the condition/damages. If you or your son expects this, the time to find out if this is going to occur is now. At the latest, no later than before your son signs the lease for the fall. And if you/he expects a thorough turnover type cleaning and repairing, please get that in writing.
Lastly, you or your son should read the lease the landlord and lessee signed. That will detail what must be done legally regarding subletting and anything else that will affect your son.
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To be clear, the new lease starts in September. He has signed for that and paid the deposit to the landlord. The subletting thing is for now through end of August. There’s nothing on paper and no money has changed hands.
Can you please clarify what you said about the landlord being able to hold money for damage already done before his lease begins? You mean my son can be held liable for damage made by tenants who have been there for years already? As in, the two original tenants who have been there for at least four years? Is that legal?
@EconPop 's post is extremely helpful. I stand corrected on getting a walk-through.
My kids have had bad experiences with both subletting and joint tenancies. That have cost them some money through no fault of their own (a roommate who scratched the floor and refused to pay, so all were liable etc.)
I fear that fumigating that apartment may not do the job long term, since there are probably cockroaches in the building.
Is the current room still spotless?
His friend already there has a spotless room. The room he has just moved into was pretty disgusting.
Oh that’s right, and he did not get to see it before moving in. Can he clean it or is it beyond that possibility? (I hate to tell you what my 34 year old son’s room looks like. When I stay with him I politely decline his offer to stay in his room and sleep on the couch!)
The problem as I see it from a landlord’s perspective is your son (or any tenant in this situation) is moving in now as a subletter, then assuming a lessee position in September. The lease the landlord currently holds (with whichever tenants originally signed it) has a clause in it that addresses damage that occurs from the start of that lease to the end of that lease, which apparently is August 31, 2021. Your son will be a sublet tenant before August 31, and a leasehold tenant as of September 1, as will be at least one other tenant as I understand it.
From a landlord’s perspective, if the unit was continuously inhabited by various groupings of tenants, how is the landlord to determine what damage/filth/pests occurred in October 2020, March 2021, July 2021, and November 2021? The short answer is, he cannot. Thus, when the damage is finally catalogued at a true tenant turnover, whoever is the leaseholder(s) at that time will be charged for the damage.
I would never do a turnover cleaning and inspection while tenants still inhabited a unit for several reasons. First, if any of the tenant’s belongings are damaged during the cleaning/bombing/etc, the landlord would be liable. No landlord wants to be in that position. Or what if a tenant demanded a pest bombing, slept overnight in the unit, then complained of adverse affects from the lingering pest control products? Again, as a landlord, no.thank.you. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
If your son wants a unit in perfect move-in condition, he should move into a unit that has had at least a week’s vacancy. That’s the only way a unit can be thoroughly cleaned, repaired and properly inspected.
EDIT: It sounds like your son’s main issue is with the roommate, not the landlord. If he thinks the roommate will be incompatible, I recommend your son find a way out now. If this is an apartment, he can ask the landlord to let him (and his other friend) move into a vacant unit at that time. I would rather risk the friendship than my quality of life and ability to be a good student because of roommate stress.
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The bedroom isn’t the issue and he can clean it. It’s the years of crud and dirt all over the rest of the house. He says it’s overwhelming. He spent an hour scrubbing just the bathtub. He knows if he stays for the summer he will end up majorly resenting the friend/roommate already there. He can’t live like that with the filth for another three months. He can’t be the only person cleaning.
I’ve talked to a couple of people about this and they are much less kind about the friend already living there: “what kind of friend lets a friend move into such a dirty place? What does that say about the friend? And why wouldn’t the friend immediately call the landlord when my son saw a roach? Why wouldn’t the friend call the landlord about the needed repairs to cupboards and doors? Is it because they don’t want the landlord to see that it’s in bad shape?” I confess that after a few days thinking about this, I’m super annoyed with the friend because I feel that my son was a bit duped.
So even though my son has not signed anything with the landlord or paid any money for now through the end of August, he is still legally obligated for damage from before September 2021? Forgive my confusion, because you said in your first post that he’s not on the hook legally. Btw, I do really appreciate your perspective as a landlord, I’m just confused.
When I responded intially, I was unaware of and/or confused about several facts. I didn’t know whether your son had actually moved in yet. I didn’t know if this was a true sublet. I didn’t know your son’s plans to remain in the unit, bridging one leaseholder’s lease period to another leaseholder’s period. And other facts. As I learned more, I was able to consider the new facts I learned.
I still don’t quite understand this subletting situation. It is possible (and recommended by me) that a sublease be in writing. I’m uncertain if your son’s summer sublease is in writing, whether it’s in writing with the original tenant or with the landlord, or with a prior tenant. I’m uncertain if the filthy tenant will remain in the apartment when your son’s lease with the landlord starts in September. I’m uncertain if that tenant’s original lease ends at that time. I’m uncertain if the landlord has one lease with 4 student lessees, or 4 leases one with each lessee and each lessee then sublets his lease when he moves out; or if the landlord has one lease with one student lessee who then recruits student sublessees who may be signing subleases with that original student, or with the landlord, or ???
There are so many variables here that I simply don’t know. Sorry.
I can’t imagine fumigating as the result of one cockroach. Maybe something short of full apartment fumigation, like a roach trap in the kitchen, would work.
@EconPop if the son has moved in, does that mean he is legally bound for the summer, despite no written lease? @Lindagaf I assume money has been exchanged at this point for the summer-?
It sounds to me as if the son should try to get out of both the summer sublet and fall lease. If possible. What does the lease actually say? He can ask the landlord if he can get out of the lease by finding a replacement. And if the landlord is comfortable with him showing it, vetting the person or what the landlord requires. @EconPop can advise but my kids have done this.
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Son is subletting from a guy who moved out on 5/14. Verbal discussion only, no landlord involved. Son has not yet paid anything to subletter. There is nothing in writing. Subletter is gone and still pays the rent.
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Son has signed and paid deposit for Sep 2021 lease, with landlord. Son moved in on 5/15. The intent is to stay through summer, with lease kicking in in September this year.
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Two longest residing tenants (probably the messy ones) move out in Sep. Current roomie/friend stays. My son , his friend, and another friend of current roomie all start new leases in Sep. @EconPop
I don’t know squat about the legalities but I would not want my D moving into a filthy apartment either. Sounds from the initial post that there will be a different set of tenants when the September lease starts? If so, I’d delay moving in for a week to give the landlord a chance to clean after the current tenants move out. Landlord will most certainly not refund their security deposits but that’s not your son’s problem. I would also have no trouble telling the person he’s subletting from that it’s a no go because of the filth. Thankfully nothing is in writing.
If some of the same tenants are going to continue to live there, I think your son has a bigger roommate problem. IMO it doesn’t matter at all if your son’s friend room is spotless but the bathroom and shared areas are filthy. Clearly the friend didn’t lift a finger to help with the general cleaning either and that’s just gross!
Lease law varies wildly from state to state and sometimes from city to city within a state. But generally I would say that without a written lease the son is not legally bound for the summer. However, it appears the son has already signed a lease and paid a deposit to move into that same unit in September, so the son is legally bound to that contract.
Now, if the landlord will not agree to allow the son to move to another unit and the son is going to honor the contract and move in in September, then it may or may not make sense to move out now and back in in September.
We might assume that if the son moves out before September the landlord will have a chance to clean/repair/fumigate. However, if other roommates will be continuously occupying the apartment, that will probably not be possible.
As I would view the situation, the two new roommates moving in while one/two prior roommates remain, this would be a continuous lease situation. Just as if I rented a house to @Lindagaf as a single woman, she married a year later and her husband moved in and signed as a co-lessee, they divorced six months later and LindaGaf moves out, and the husband remains and resigns the lease as the sole lessee six months after that.
No one would expect the landlord to perform a complete cleaning/repair/fumigation at that point. The house was continuously occupied by the same group of people. Also, the landlord is not responsible for determining, at the time Linda moves out, what damage to the house was caused by her or by her ex-husband who will remain in the unit - or to try to refund a portion of the original deposit. It was a continuous lease situation. IMO, this roommate situation is analogous to that situation.
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If there is never a complete move out and inspection, how would the landlord know if damage was caused by the two roommates moving out in March 2021 or by your son in October 2021? He can’t know when the stove burners were damaged, when the hole in the wall was made, when the stain appeared on the rug. Even if each person has an individual lease, they’ll all be responsible for the damages, but only those still living in the apartment and for whom the landlord currently holds a security deposit will pay.
As I said, when my daughter and her teammates moved in and out, no one inspected between tenants. I don’t remember if she got her deposit back, but if she didn’t it wasn’t a lot of money (couple hundred?) so not a big deal. I actually think one of the parents handled it (not me!). Their property management company would only take one check for the rent payment, so a parent served as the collector, paid the utilities, etc. My daughter paid that mom every month. In the group after my daughter, one kid moved out and it was the other two who were hit with having to pay the extra in rent and utilities until they found another tenant.
Ok, thanks, that makes sense.
So if I’m understanding, is my son at least within his rights to ask the landlord to look at the place before the three newbies move in in September?
I guess what’s hard to swallow is that if people continue to leave, join, leave, join, the cycle is never broken and it’s impossible to know when damage was incurred. I have never been in this kind of rental situation so I really appreciate all these words of wisdom.
Student rentals like this is not for the faint hearted, either landlords or tenants. In this sort of revolving door student rental, as a tenant/parent I would assume the deposits are always forfeited, at least in part.
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