Do all the roommates have to be on a rental lease in Virginia, USA? I'm looking to rent a property with my partner, but their credit is not great (lower than 650). Do they need to be on the lease too or can I rent the apartment and allow them to live with me?
In Virginia there is a distinction between a tenant and an authorized occupant. An authorized occupant is a person entitled to occupy a dwelling unit with the consent of the landlord, but who has not signed the rental agreement and therefore does not have the financial obligations as a tenant under the rental agreement. A tenant is a person entitled only under the terms of a rental agreement to occupy a dwelling unit to the exclusion of others and shall include roomer. There is a third category, guest or invitee which means a person, other than the tenant or person authorized by the landlord to occupy the premises, who has the permission of the tenant to visit but not to occupy the premises. Such people who live there would not be invitees. Clearly, you can have others living with you who are not on the lease, if the landlord agrees. The landlord's main concern regarding credit rating is probably financial responsibility, and if you qualify, having people live with you who have low or no credit rating is unlikely to make any difference. There may be other concerns, such as background checks or increases utility costs). Virginia law does not specifically allow "unauthorized occupants", i.e. occupants not approved by the landlord, nor does it specifically disallow such occupants. Leases often include a provision that addresses this matter, prohibiting unauthorized occupants. Supposing that the lease is silent on the matter (not likely) and the landlord wanted to compel the other occupants to leave, the procedure would be to tell the tenant that the unauthorized occupants must leave. Then if you do not comply (do not get them to move out), the landlord could start the procedure of evicting the lot of you, and the question would be whether the court would find that you have a right to let unauthorized other people live with you. I can't find any applicable case law, but it is unlikely that the court would find such a right. Tenants have special statutory rights, as do authorized occupants under the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. A court would not find that the rights of an authorized occupant extend to an unauthorized occupant, which means that the landlord's rights as property owner are dispositive of the matter.
I do not have anything official proving that I gave him the 2-months worth deposit What did you do, hand him a wad of cash? Pay by check, and put what it's for on the memo line. You've been there for nine months and there are several other people who can testify that you've been living there, so it would be difficult to claim that you aren't a renter. If you can show that the landlord is aware of your residence, that definitely helps even further, as does receiving mail there, registering to vote or with the DMV with that address, etc. Question 1 : what would be the best course of action to force the landlord to give me the requested lease agreement? You can't "force" someone to give you an agreement. That's kinda part of the definition of the word "agreement". If you find the conditions unacceptable, you can find another place to rent. When I asked the landlord about what he was planning to do regarding that, his answer was that it was not his business. It doesn't seem like it is. You could take the money you would have given to the other roommate, and give it to the power company instead. If paying for the utilities is part of the renters' responsibilities, and the renters are not paying for the utilities, then it's their choice to not have power. In California, landlords are required to make power available, but that just means that they can't interfere with you purchasing it from the power company, not that the landlord has to pay for it (if the landlord had agreed to pay for it, and isn't, then you can deduct the cost from the rent, but you can't simply withhold all rent, and your question indicates that the landlord hasn't agreed to pay for power anyway). Am I protected in any way, or can the landlord just come in my room and throw everything away, or worse just point me with a gun and force me to move? It would be difficult for the landlord to get rid of you, and would probably take several months to do legally. Performing an eviction himself, rather than getting the sheriff's department to do it, would expose him to serious charges, especially if a gun were used. Besides criminal charges, "If this or other unlawful methods, such as locking a tenant out or seizing his possessions before an eviction process has ended, are used to force a tenant to leave a property, a landlord may be subject to fees up to $100 per day of unlawful method use." http://homeguides.sfgate.com/tenants-rights-utility-billing-california-8073.html However, while the legal process will take a long time, at the end you will still be liable for back rent, and you will have an eviction on your record, which will make it harder to rent in the future.
In the US and probably most if not all common law jurisdictions, this means that all of the siblings enjoy equal rights to the property. There are different kinds of ownerships, including tenancy in common and joint ownership. Whatever the case may be, one or more of the co-owners cannot confiscate your property, so they cannot remove your claim. They also cannot kick you out. The only legal way to remove you is via a court process where, after a court order, the sheriff tosses you into the street. It would be a crime (literally) for them to physically remove you themselves. They could sue you for your share of the &quot;bills&quot;, depending on what those bills are. For example, as a co-owner, you have an obligation to pay a portion of the property taxes, even if you don't live there. You do not have an obligation to pay a portion of the cable bill if you don't live there. You would be liable for a share of necessary repairs, but not unnecessary fancying-up. You would also be entitled to a share of any rent received, if they had been renting out a part of the house. Since you do in fact owe a share of the taxes and repairs, it is counterproductive to say &quot;Oh yeah? Sue me!&quot;.
user662852 has a good point -- whoever own the property has the right to make the rules. Is the property, land+construction in fact your's or does it belong to the HOA who just grant you access as a lease holder? Different states has different rules, but in my state it is illegal to maroon a property and there must be a access to public streets even when this necessitate passing over somebody else land. However that is irrelevant if the HOA owns the land your house is build on. I think you will have to look at your HOA agreement and see what it says.
First, you will need to look at your existing lease. Most leases automatically transfer to month-to-month after the initial term ends. It is quite probable that your landlord said "fine" to the month-to-month extension because it was already part of your existing lease. Second, you will need to look at your existing lease and see what notification was required for you to move out. Typically, a lease transitions to month-to-month and in your lease it probably already said that you needed to provide 30 days notice even if you were leaving at the end of the lease's original term. Third, yes, you are on the hook for rent until you give 30 days notice. Your "verbal agreement" is a contract and your landlord agreed to allow you to stay in the apartment as long as you gave him 30 days notice before moving out and paid your rent every month. Most of this is probably already spelled out in your current lease. Even if it isn't, you have indicated that you have a verbal contract with your landlord.
You would need to know the landlord's reasons for refusal in order to determine their reasonableness or otherwise. If there is a dispute about this (i.e. They think they are reasonable and you don't) you can seek a court order requiring the landlord to accept the sublease or alternatively, that since the landlord has breached the contract, you are entitled to terminate it. Hire a lawyer before you do this.
Unless your lease clearly denies the possibility of prorating, the emails are binding (and yes, emails count as in writing). The landlord ought to honor the conditions outlined in the emails, and it is not your fault that the manager was ignorant about his or her employer's/landlord's policies at the time the manager computed the prorated amount. Additionally, if the lease only speaks in terms of 20-day notice, then it implies that prorating may apply. It is possible that the lease contains language in the sense of when the notice becomes "effective". If so, that would require a more detailed review of the language therein, since even in that scenario you might prevail on the basis of the doctrine of contra proferentem. Here the difficult part seems to be that you are not in the US. Because the amount at issue is not high enough, the grievance/complaint would have to be filed in Small Claims court. And, as far as I know, the parties cannot be represented by a lawyer in Small Claims court. You might have to file your grievance once you are back in the US.
The tenants have a right to the &quot;quiet enjoyment&quot; of the house, but the only way to enforce that is to sue the landlord, and the probable remedy is money damages, with an injunction possible. Neither of those really solves the problem here. The California Tenants Guide notes, onpages 63-4, the &quot;Special rights of tenants who are victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, or elder/dependent adult abuse.&quot; These special rights allow a tenant who is a victim to move out on 14 days notes without penalty, rather than a longer period that would otherwise be required. But here the tenants, it seems don't really want to move out, they want the landlord to move into an appropriate care facility. It is also not clear to me if this provision would apply when the aggressor is also the landlord. There is no simple way for the tenants to force this. They could, as interested parties, file a petition witj the proper court claiming that the landlord is incompetent to manager her own affairs, is a danger to herself and/or others, and is in need of a guardian. But such a petition is unlikely to go anywhere unless someone is wiling and able to act as a guardian, someone who would be acceptable to the court. One of th tenants would probably not be acceptable, even if one was willing. One option is to keep calling 911 on every violent outburst, and to document the violence on cell-phone videos, or in any other way possible. This might eventually lead to the police or other authority intervening in s helpful way, but that is far from assured.