You need to seek some legal counsel, as lucy suggests. Mgmt sure did muddy up the waters for you. :/ Were it me, I would have simply terminated your lease and signed the other 3 tenants up. As it stands, the new occupants pretty much have zero incentive to take care of the place since it's your money that mgmt has and not theirs at the moment. Regardless, it sounds not quite right to me. Unless this is a sublet deal wherein your names are still on the lease, then 'signing off on the lease' indicates the contract has been terminated. If the contract is indeed terminated, then it's time to wrap it up and address the Sec Dep deductions and refund per your State's regulations. Because if your contract has indeed been terminated, and now the new occupants are under separate contract and they are named as Lessees or Tenants, then you are essentially paying for the new tenants' security deposit. And that's not the way it works. What did the 'sign off' paper say that you signed?. Has your name been removed? You do not want to be attached to a leased unit for which you pay no $, have no access to, that's just asking for a world of trouble (e.g. mgmt could attempt to collect from you if new occupants don't pay, etc.) And the language in your law that you posted, as I'm interpreting it, does indeed indicate that once the agreement has been terminated, the LL must address the SD issue before the 30 day mark is up. **A note, cover yourself from any possible loophole and provide a forwarding address to mgmt in writing. In fact, whomever had their name on the lease should provide a forwarding address, or you could include it for them. Prepare a simple note today and mail it tomorrow. Send it Certified, so mgmt office has to sign for it. Doesn't have to be complicated, just "We wanted to advise you for future correspondence our new addresses are [insert your name, your roommates names and each ones forwarding address]. Then simply sign is. That way mgmt can't say they didn't refund anything because they didn't know how to reach you. For your own protection, don't agree to anything else verbally and don't sign anything else until you've sought some kind of legal advice (and have your lease, sign off papers and any other paperwork in hand).

A few more details would be helpful: How long was her initial lease term, what were the dates? When did she move out? Did she give notice? If so, verbal, written? How far in advance? My someday future daughter in law was living in a apt in California with her roomies, she ended up leaving because one of the roomies moved in a boyfriend whom she does not trust. In all likelihood, this was in direct violation of the agreement that your future d-i-l signed, and is grounds for terminating the contract. The proper thing to do would have been to put it all in writing, voicing that it is in direct violation of the agreement, that she is ill at ease living in these circumstances, and that if Boyfriend is not removed from the premises in xx number of days she will be leaving based on violation of the occupancy agreement. That should have been sent certified (signature required) to each individual roommate and the landlord. Landlord at that point should have swooped in and made sure Boyfriend was removed from premises. If landlord did not remove Boyfriend who intimidated your future d-i-l, thus violating agreement, she would have had the right to send him a second notice that she would be moving out based on the fact that Boyfriend was still residing at premises in violation of their Agreement and she was ill at ease with this person's living in her residence. (But I'm going to conclude she's younger, and probably didn't know protocol for handling this type of situation.) I thought that if your lease is up you can move out. You can. The contract is up. Notice is typically given in advance that party(s) will not be renewing. This assists all concerned in making a smoother transition to new occupancy/new lease term. However, if I have a tenant who moves out at the end of their lease did not give me notice, I cannot legally force them to continue to pay rents once a contract has expired. It's my job as landlord to keep communication open and see what their intentions are. Also, contracts with roommates are in general a big pain in the ***. I have one house now that has had various roommates over a 5 year period. Only one young man has stayed consistently. Typically, one roommate will 'bail' for greener pastures at some point during the annual term, typically with the attitude that remaining roommates are sufficient to carry the lease and come up with rents. (Not always the case.) Since alternate roommates are pretty readily available to the remaining tenants in my case, it's simpler for me to terminate the lease and start a new one rather than take abandoning roommate to court. Typically what I do is send a "Termination of Lease Notice" to all involved indicating that I'm immediately terminating the lease because one of the roommates abandoned the premises, in direct violation of terms of lease, etc. I then immediately initiate a new lease with remaining roommates and adding the new roommate they got to fill the abandoning roommates place. And abandoning roommate has lost their deposit. Concluding there are no 'quirky' clauses in the lease, (it's written in 'standard' language), I'll toss out a few scenarios from a landlord's perspective. If she was on a term lease, and it's expired, her commitment has ended. Additionally in her favor, if since her departure and expiration of agreement she signed, the lease/contract has changed terms to month to month, and she did not sign the new contract, then she's no longer party to any agreement or bound to it. In other words, say she signed an annual lease that went from 1/1/2006 to 12/31/ 2006, she moved out 10/31/2006. When the annual lease term expired 12/31/06, that contract was exhausted. Subsequently, a new monthly contract was drawn up effective 1/1/2007. She didn't sign it expressing her compliance or agreement to the new terms, in fact she's not even living there. She's not bound to it. No two ways of getting around it that I can see. However, she is technically liable for rents through the entire term of the original lease agreement she signed. (Unless she got a new roommate to take her place, it was done in accordance with any roommate change clause in the lease, and all parties concerned were in written agreement). So if she left 10/31/06, term expired 12/31/06, no agreed upon roommate was introduced to take over the rents, then she is liable for rents for Nov 2006 and Dec 2006 using my example above. She can probably kiss her deposit goodbye, but she was probably anticipating that. Here's a different scenario. Lets say she had stayed on to the end of her lease period, resided there, paid the rent, tolerated the boyfriend. Then landlord decides to change terms of the agreement at renewal. Landlord and other roommates agree on it but future d-i-l does not. If she isn't happy with new terms of new contract (and it could be anything: change to monthly lease, pets are now allowed, increase in rents, etc.) the others cannot attempt to force her to accept a new lease wherein she finds any changes in the terms disagreeable to her. And that, in essence, sounds like it is exactly what they are trying to do here. Seems to be a double standard here. One roommate is allowed to violate the terms of the agreement by introducing a non-contracted party, and all other parties concerned are expected to 'look the other way'. Yet they are trying to force future d-i-l to continue paying rents on a contract she's no longer party to at a residence she no longer resides in. lucy above said it quite well, she cannot be held 'hostage' . If it went to court, she would in all likelihood be held liable for unpaid rents up to the time of original contract expiration, probably lose her security deposit, but that is likely where it would stop. It's almost laughable that the landlord has essentially introduced a new contract with new terms (monthly now) and is insistent that current lessees 'release' her. There's nothing to release her from at this juncture, because she didn't agree to the new contract terms. It just doesn't work that way. Can you clarify the details for us as asked above? I have a few more thoughts to offer on your future d-i-l creating a paper trail, albeit after the fact, that might be enough to get the landlord to back down and see reason. (Landlord sounds like they're thinking is 'off' based on what you've supplied so far.) But it would help to have some blanks filled in.

Funny, I remembered I'd just read a section in Every Tenant's Legal Guide about false advertising. I looked it up, and while the chapter deals with repairs, it kind of touches on your problem. Apparently, if a landlord advertises something, like cable TV, he's required to keep it working; if not, you can repair it yourself and sue in small claims court. It's not the same issue (when have you ever read a guide that addresses your exact problem? :o), but I think it's close. You moved in on the expectation that you'd have no neighbors' pets to deal with (and no odors from previous pets in your unit), and that's not how it worked. You should be able to sue in small claims for everything; the two months plus the admin fee. Just make sure you print out the web page, cut out the newspaper ad, and obviously bring a copy of your lease. Maybe get hold of the book and copy the section on advertising promises.

just because you're not *in* your home doesn't mean it isn't still your home. It has your stuff; it's waiting there for you when you get back, no one is moving your stuff around, etc. But if your dad has lots of room, and is the kind of dad that would not try to change you, or expect you to become HIS buddy/roommate more than you wanted to, then it could be worth trying to one. One nice thing: you don't have to commit to Dad until you figure out whether you can find someone to sublet. Or a new non-sweetheart-type person to be a roommate (if your place has room for it)