unpaid rent

[jammonkey]

My boyfriend and three of is friend rented an apartment for a year and one of his friends stopped paying rent (and skipped town) at some point to where it added up to about $3,000 in unpaid rent...the landlord never asked my boyfriend or the other two roommates for any money and now the landlord is suing ONLY my boyfriend for what is now about $4,500... he just received the judgment in the mail...and from what I have heard from him and his 2 friends is that the landlord would never return their calls for anything (leaky pipe, sky light window leaky, etc.)...is there anything my boyfriend can do to either reduce the amount, besides asking his friends to chip in or suing his friends for some of the money, or get it dropped so he is not responsible?

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

Since a lawsuit has been filed, your boyfriends choice is to attend the court hearing and plead his case or not attend and lose by default. It will be up to the judge to decide if he owes this money.

He can bring up the history of the landlord failing to repair things but frankly, the issue is owed rent. It would have been thing if your boyfriend and his roommates had been forced to vacate due to repairs that the landlord never addressed; this isn't the case here.

If the judgement is against him, your boyfriend can turn around and sue the roommates for some of this money.

Gail

 

[jacksgal]

Why is it renters always want to bring up repair issues once they owe money to Landlord? Anyways like Gail states this is non issue to suit. Its possible Judge will not even allow it to be brought up in court. Whose name is on lease? I suspect only your BF nam ei son lease which is why he was sued and not others. The rent is owed pure an simple no escaping that. Your BF needs to sue the "freind" that left and failed to pay his share of rent. In that suit he needs to show an dprove he (the friend) was paying rent. If there is any written agreement between them that too is needed