Multiple Roommates, One Lease?

[Sean Monahan]

Hi everyone. My wife and I recently purchased our first strictly investment property in Baltimore City. It's a three bedroom row home and we're beginning to screen potential tenants and anticipate that we will likely end up with three single individuals living as roommates; however, we're not sure how to structure the lease for this situation. We are currently renting my wife's old house but it's to a couple so we are wondering if we have to change the wording of the lease for a roommate situation, which has led us to a few questions:

1) Should we put all three tenants on the same lease?

2)Should we make each person responsible for paying their own portion of the rent directly to us or should we just ask for the total rent from one person and they can figure out how to divide it up amongst themselves?

3) In the event that one person doesn't pay their portion of the rent but the other two do, do we move to evict just the one or do we evict all three?

4) If one person has to move out before the lease is up but the other two are staying, do we make everyone sign a new lease? Do we let them find the new person and then have the new person do a credit check through us?

This is a new situation for us and we just want to make sure we iron out as much as we can ahead of time in case these situations come up. Thanks in advance for any feedback!