MichState1fan
New Member
So I have a fairly complicated situation on my hands. About two or three years ago, I moved into a house with three other girls and signed a lease. Upon signing the lease, we each paid $300, the equivalent to a month's rent, as our security deposit. Approximately seven months later, the town rental inspection came around and found out that we were not in accordance with rental guidelines of the township by having four people in the house (the limit is 3). Supposedly my landlord did not know this and he had even gone through a real estate company to rent it out so it was pretty much the real estate company's fault. Anyway, one of my roommates moved out because of this problem but I believe did not receive her security deposit. So then there were three of us and from this point forward we have not had a signed lease. Oh, did I mention that our landlord lives in the Netherlands, a half a world away so that we have to take care of all keep up of the house, he just covers the cost of it, but we still have the hassle of finding people fix things, etc. Anyway, a year ago, another one of my roommates moved out but this time a new one moved in. Again the roommate moving out did not receive her security deposit back (I believe?). But the new roommate did not pay a security deposit either. Now, the last roommate of the original 4 (besides me) is moving out in January and wants her security deposit back, which is fine except that she has a rabbit that caused minor damage to the carpet in the living room. Another roommate (my sister) will be moving in, in her place, and he may make her and the other newer roommate pay security deposits but I know the one has already made it clear that she's not that comfortable with that because she doesn't want to be paying for damages that may have been already done to the house before she moved in. Don't get me wrong, we've kept the house in pretty good condition without any major damage except maybe the small amount of carpet damage from the rabbit. Because our landlord lives over seas, he won't be coming back to check damages but trusts her to "make the right decision" as to how much he should receive back. He also plans to give our security deposit back in the form of us not paying rent our last month in the house. All of this would be fine except that I don't want to be stuck with the bill if the carpet has to be replaced in August when I plan to move out, etc. I'm wondering how we should handle this situation. He also now mentions he would like a lease but he would like us to make it but I don't really feel like that should be our responsibility and I'm not really sure if he'll really make one or not, especially if we don't. I'm not sure if we should pursue the lease idea because it may bite us in the end because right now we don't have any rules per say about cleaning carpets when we leave etc. I know this is a really complicated situation but I'm just looking for a little help with it. Any help with any of the problems would be extremely helpful.
