Greetings! My girlfriend and i are subletting a small room in a 2.5 bed, 1 bath apartment located on Camp Street in San Francisco, CA. We are being charged 1,600 for our room, and all other utilities are covered. The master tenant refuses a written lease agreement but claimed that we are able to obtain the total rent and/or contact the landlord if we desire. The issue here is this....
We were notified by email on October 28th, 2013 that our subletting agreements (oral agreements) are not working out, and offered a 2-2.5 month period to vacate. We moved in on August 17th, 2013, and we have paid rent to the master tenant on-time and in full by their means of payment (check). We had requested a written agreement of the sublet but the master tenant refused to do so. On October 29th, 2013, She had explicitly stated that she is unemployed and that she feels bad for misleading us. Also, she has failed to provide evidence of her own lease agreements with the landlord. We suspect that she is being covert with her subletting because he wanted to know why the water bill was so steep (apparently). Our room was originally 800 for the previous occupant, and the living-room converted bedroom was also 800. The address is in the Mission District, off of Camp Street (Albion and Guererro are the cross streets). I believe the building was built before 1979, and there are other renters in different apartments in the building (approximately 3 on our street, and 3 more on the adjacent street, same building).
What are our rights?
What should we do?
...and what information is needed to gather more valuable insight?
We were notified by email on October 28th, 2013 that our subletting agreements (oral agreements) are not working out, and offered a 2-2.5 month period to vacate. We moved in on August 17th, 2013, and we have paid rent to the master tenant on-time and in full by their means of payment (check). We had requested a written agreement of the sublet but the master tenant refused to do so. On October 29th, 2013, She had explicitly stated that she is unemployed and that she feels bad for misleading us. Also, she has failed to provide evidence of her own lease agreements with the landlord. We suspect that she is being covert with her subletting because he wanted to know why the water bill was so steep (apparently). Our room was originally 800 for the previous occupant, and the living-room converted bedroom was also 800. The address is in the Mission District, off of Camp Street (Albion and Guererro are the cross streets). I believe the building was built before 1979, and there are other renters in different apartments in the building (approximately 3 on our street, and 3 more on the adjacent street, same building).
What are our rights?
What should we do?
...and what information is needed to gather more valuable insight?
