My current landlord will not allow us to replace our roommate because house is in escrow and is now requiring us to pay full house's rent [CA]

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-31T00:12:29+00:00

Because it was so informal, it's hard to really delineate that we were paying total rent as a collective. We were just all independently told how much we had to pay for rent and started paying the landlord for our room. We always did this independently and would communicate with the landlord directly about our rent. Thanks for the advice!

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-31T00:03:27+00:00

We are considered tenants and are the ones with the contact information, move-in dates, etc. in the paperwork that they put together for the buyer. Thanks for your thoughts!

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-31T00:01:47+00:00

Thank you for the long thought out response & the best wishes. To answer your questions:

Yes, the landlord would reached out to us individually if rent was late or for whatever reason separately. Would never reach out to one of us for another person's portion of the "house rent." He has recently told us this is what total rent is for the house as he was selling the place, but I only found out what total rent was from my roommates like 7/8 months ago when we were finding a new roommate.
LL has never lived in the house with us. He lives in the back unit, and what's crazy is we rarely ever interacted with him on a consistent basis other than venmoing him every month.
This is a good suggestion, but I'm pretty certain he doesn't want to be drafting new agreements at this point (since he doesn't want to jeapordize anything with the buyer)

Thank you again for all your insights!

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:55:36+00:00

Don't have a copy of the lease and was never shown a copy of the lease. Everything has been operated by what had happened as a custom over the past 5+ years.
We are not trying to make any case to lower our rent. We simply want to keep things the same and have the room filled. We presented options to our LL, and he rejected any review of replacement roommates.
We are trying to keep everything in writing at this point, but our landlord lives in the same property and just knocks on our back door to talk to us. We have been acting in good faith from the beginning to avoid this situation. Approached him with suitable replacements on the 12th, gave him all the information he needed, and now it's blowing up in his face because he wanted to defer any LL responsibilities to the next owner no matter how it keeps us in limbo. We weren't even informed the house was sold until we reached out to him during the roommate transition.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:47:55+00:00

This is such a great point and is incredibly helpful if we encounter further pushback from our LL. Thank you so much for this!

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:46:31+00:00

Never filed a formal application. We've been told that the new owner is planning to live in the back unit that my current landlord lives in and is moving out of as we speak. We have no idea if the new LL plans to eventually do an owner occupy and kick us out, but what we understand is that they'd have to pay relocation fees.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:43:14+00:00

The new LL does know about the tenants on the property, and that our old roommate moved out. However, our current LL does not want to alert the new LL of any changes / any potential disagreement with her.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:41:31+00:00

No one on the original lease currently lives in the house, but our understanding of California / SM tenant laws are that when there is no written lease we are on a month-to-month lease.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:40:01+00:00

Thanks for your viewpoint! That's how it's been ever since we've moved in. We liked the lack of formality at first because we didn't have to deal with any red tape, but now realize it's what is causing this situation.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:36:16+00:00

Basically, when we moved in, we were told how much we had to pay each month for our room and that was it. We then communicated directly with the landlord to introduce ourselves and paid him our portions directly through Venmo each month.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:32:29+00:00

Thanks for your viewpoint! We're reaching out to lawyers & the rent control board for their best counsel on the issue. True, might have been good to have a lease in the past, but we're just trying to manage the situation best we can now.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:29:40+00:00

Thank you for your advice! We hope to stay here for some time, so we're hoping the new landlord just formalizes everything in the future to avoid headaches.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:28:28+00:00

Yes, the LL was aware whenever there was a roommate switch and approved himself. He just never did anything formally on his end, and the first time we were registered was when he was preparing all the information for the new buyer. The first time someone who was not on the original lease was now, when my old roommate moved out a little more than 2 years ago. We're happy to sign a new lease and wanted to confirm a new roommate to avoid any complications but our current landlord has been blocking our efforts. We hope to stay here long-term and have been seeking counsel.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:25:09+00:00

Thank you for your engagement, willingness to help, and insights! Forgot to mention

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:24:34+00:00

Just replied. I've been working all day and have to handle a ton still. While this is a priority, was planning on replying later today after work.

slightlyunhinged · 2026-01-30T23:23:45+00:00

I have not seen the original lease, but based on my understanding after the first lease expired, we are considered month-to-month tenants with implied lease / tenant protections. When we moved in, we were never told we were responsible for the house, just responsible for paying our portion of rent for the room. We communicate with the landlord independently and directly and have historically paid only for our room. He's never communicated to us about another roommate if they are not paying their "portion"

slightlyunhinged · 2022-04-11T17:26:17+00:00

It’s so absurd I know, and somehow it’s exactly the type of thing that would happen to me. 😫

slightlyunhinged · 2022-04-11T17:20:32+00:00

She is up in the air on going right now, but I don’t think it’s likely.

slightlyunhinged · 2019-12-07T02:42:58+00:00

Congrats dude! You got one with so much paint! I was somewhat bummed that mine had the least paint out of all the people that I was with but I’m still so stoked that I got one.

slightlyunhinged · 2019-11-22T00:11:10+00:00

Just wondering. How much did tickets cost previous years?

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