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).

I'm pretty sure she knows that it's way too loud. She doesn't actually believe the maintenance guy is racist, if she does then she needs her head examined. I think she's stalling because she doesn't want to kick out paying tenants. I've actually tried to arrange something with the manager, because my neighbors usually start up around 6:30pm, half-an-hour after the office closes and all-day on Sundays when the office isn't open at all. The problem is, the office is usually closed by the time I get home from work. Tuesdays are the only days I'm home before 6pm and I think they've caught onto my pattern because she's always busy now when I show up and she's off on Saturdays. I've left messages with her assistants but she's totally dodging me. I sent an email to the regional manager last night, I don't have their phone number and can't find it for the life of me. It'll probably be a week or so before I hear anything back. As for my neighbors, they're friends with the people who live next door to them. The guy who lives above them is deaf (I'm not joking he's actually deaf). The woman who lives directly across from them works evenings and doesn't get home until midnight, but she actually told me that she can sometimes hear their television in her living room during the day, but she doesn't want to get involved. I think I can work on her and she might be willing to talk to the manager, if I can ever get a hold of her, but I still don't think my manager will do anything. If the regional manager won't get involved, can I break my lease without shelling out the subsequent fine?

Not paying the rent sounds like a bad idea. There are late fees that rack up, and if it is kept up, the landlord can demand payment in full of the remaining amount on the entire lease. Since it's a joint lease, any or all of us can be targeted for that, and since I'd be the one that stopped paying, they would probably come after me or my cosigner. Subletting is possible but I don't think I could find anybody. I did resign the lease for the next year (stupid, I know, please don't lecture me about it) because the pressures to do so were great -- free utilities are included, free high speed internet and cable are included, free parking spaces are included, central air and a patio are included, and a free-to-use washer and dryer are included INSIDE our actual apartment, and prices were going up, which stayed the same if we resigned. I am well aware that I am outnumbered, that is why I have come here. Surely, from a legal standpoint, there has to be a black and white answer since the lease says nothing about this. The simple majority wouldn't make sense to me because it still wouldn't account for all scenarios -- like an even split for example. It would sort of make sense to me that one lessee could kick out the guests of other lessees. As a rent paying tenant, wouldn't I have the right to not have to have anyone around me that I don't like except other paying tenants? What if guests are using the utilities? I haven't sanctioned that, and they are only free up to a certain monthly quota. If that quota is surpassed, the tenants have to start paying. So even if they don't surpass it, they [the guests] are effectively leaving me, a paying tenant, with less free utilities for the month. I've tried talking to them, it's no use. They act like I am the problem. That is why I want to find a black and white legal answer to this question...

moonshadow- I don't get it. You are more sympathetic of the landlord (who is able to sleep peacefully at night) than of the person who is paying good money for the "quiet enjoyment" of their premises. Have you ever lived beneath someone as noisy as corrinemb's neighbors? First of all, if you're going to quote me, please use all the words I said. Quoting selectively chosen text tends to alter the meaning of the original text. (Although I mentioned vacation, please note I also said the landlady could have been away at a funeral, or tending to a sick parent). Also, you make some really strong assumptions in your posts, dreamgarden. You called the landlord a liar and said she knew about the noise from above all along and that's why the unit is empty. Umm, it's not empty, corrinemb is living in it. And you know the landlord is a liar how? Because you've lived in one of her rentals and dealt with this individual before? "Liar" is a very harsh word. Personally, I despise that word. You've also assumed (and presented as a fact) that the landlord is able to sleep peacefully at night. (Again, you know this how?) So why am I sticking up for her? Because I am a landlord. And if you read that post carefully, you will see there is a bit more going on there. I know exactly how it feels to be 500 miles away (not on vacation) and have all h*ll break loose over a non-emergency. Sure, I can and would make a phone call to disruptive tenants. But phone calls tend to not be taken too seriously and do not create the critically necessary paper trail. As an effective landlord, what I need to do is go over there and check out the situation for myself. I need to make the determination whether the extra person has indeed moved in or was just visiting for the holidays. Then put the transgressions in writing and send it via certified mail to the tenant. Let's say the landlord wasn't away, that she was in town. Let's say landlord drops everything for this situation and made it her utmost priority in life that week. Here's how it would have transpired (and I'm taking these dates directly from corrine's post.) Corrine calls landlady on Sun 12/3. Landlady immediately calls upstairs tenants, gives 24 hours notice that she's doing an inspection. Now it's Monday afternoon, 12/4. Landlord inspects, assess, talks with tenants. Landlord goes home, sits down, and types a letter that same day. By now P.O. is closed, so landlady goes to P.O. first thing Tues morning 12/5, letter goes out that day. Since landlord and tenants are geographically close, letter will probably arrive at tenant's on Wednesday 12/6 or Thursday 12/7. Friday 12/8 rolls around, no results, and corrinemb is going to call again, because she came here and posted very early on the morning of Saturday morning, 12/9. Do you see the illustration here? IF the landlady were in town and IF she acted immediately at every phase of this step, that STILL would only allow 2 1/2 weekdays or so (Wed-Fri or Thurs-Fri) to resolve all the issues at hand. Landlords are people with problems and crises and LIVES, just like everyone else, yet some tenants act as if they can demand the landlord "jump" and landlord will respond with "how high". I have good relationships with all my tenants. If they are not unreasonable demanding, or screaming about their rights, I will do whatever it takes, putting my own appointments and needs aside, to keep them comfortable and happy. If they turn out to be the screaming/demanding type, I pray they bail on their lease before I can legally get them out. They aren't worth it. Just like a homeowner has to address structural issues immediately, I have to do the same for dwellings with tenants in them. If I get a call at 4 a.m. that the furnace is malfunctioning, and it's 20 degrees out, I can't go back to bed and curl up under my warm covers. One time the town broke a water main during work and my elderly tenants had no water. Not my obligation, but I went to the store and purchased several gallons of distilled and drinking water because one of them had a colostomy bag that required purified water several times a day. I didn't have to do that. It was caused by the municipality and was in the street, not any plumbing malfunction inside the dwelling itself. They had money, a car, and the store was 3 blocks away. I did it to be NICE. I have shoveled knee deep snow for those same elderly tenants when they went to Fla for Christmas so the house didn't look vacant and it was not a temptation to break in. Why did I do it? Because the good for nothing grown kids of my tenants were "too busy" and broke the promise they made to their parents to keep an eye on things and maintain snow. I have had to drop everything and rush to a house that had raw sewage running out a pipe and down the driveway. Cost me a bundle, it was a weekend night call. You know what caused it? A washcloth flushed down the toilet. When I conveyed this to the tenant, her response: 'you know how it is when you're dumping your dirty cleaning bucket down the toilet, you don't pay attention to what's in it'. Didn't even get Christmas off this year. Tenant calls me as she's flying to CA on holiday, sewage is backing up and pipe is leaking. That problem didn't happen overnight, she just didn't tell me until she was on a plane.So guess how the plumber and I spent Christmas Eve, because the house was filled with lethal sewer gas and I couldn't let it go. I've had to get out of bed in the middle of the night, cancel my own personal appointments, rearrange my schedule, you name it, to get emergencies taken care of. And I never complain to my tenants because it's my responsibility. However: if someone's going to bug me twice in a week over something that can and should be addressed when I get back in town, it's not going to sit well with me. Get the picture?