All Forum Posts by: Erin B.

I've looked into the lease and while it doesn't contain any statements about the tenants being jointly and severally responsible for the rent payment, both of their names are listed then followed with a statement that considers them one tenant, "____<Both Names> ___(hereinafter referred to as "Tenant." For and in consideration of the covenants and obligations contained herein and other good and valuable consideration, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, the parties hereto hereby agree as follows:" 

Could this alone allow us to consider them jointly and severally responsible? 

Thank you so much everyone for your feedback - this has all been extremely helpful! I am going to notify the male tenant in writing that we cannot get involved and from now on if dealing with a roommate situation, include it in the lease how much each party is paying toward the lease. 

Hello, I am hoping someone can help provide some feedback/advice on my current situation. My husband and I own a multi-family home, that we bought about 2 years ago (so we are new to being landlords).  We live on the 2nd and 3rd floor and rent out the first floor. 

In July we had a couple move in, both signed the lease for 1 full year. We were informed by the male tenant last week that the female had moved out. She did not notify us that she was breaking the lease, nor did she turn in her keys. She did send an email to the male tenant stating that he either needed to agree to take over the entire rent or find a roommate to cover the other half. (The apt is only a 1 br/1ba). She also stated if he refused, she would take it up with us, the landlords. 

The male tenant asked us to reach out to the female and request that she continue to pay half the rent as she did not give us notification that she would be vacating the premises. The lease states that if abandonment were to occur during the 1-year lease agreement that the we can hold the tenant liable for any difference between the rent that would have been payable under the PA lease agreement during the balance of the unexpired term. With that said, the lease does not contain any agreement on how much each tenant owed, only the total amount due per month. 

I am trying to look into PA tenant/landlord law to find out what we can and cannot do here. Do we reach out to the female to notify her she must continue to pay rent until the male sublets  or do we stay out of it entirely and notify the male tenant we cannot get involved?

Thank you so much for your help in this situation! 

My husband and I purchased a multi-family unit a little over a year ago which we live in on the 2nd and 3rd floor and we rent out the 1st floor. Our first tenant was already living in the 1st floor apartment when we bought the house. 

Our first tenant moved out to move to another city and we have new (young 23-24 yrs old) tenants who moved in a few weeks ago and I'm already concerned about quite a few things we've experienced (telling us they had 1 cat when they have 2 and finding this out after they filled out the lease paperwork, dog waste in the yard, animal smell in the front hallway, never ending laundry in the free laundry facility in the basement). I am giving a little extra background info here to help with the full picture of my question...

All utilities with the unit are included (everything runs on the same meter and we have no way to separate the charges to calculate usage). We provide a window AC unit for the summer months as we're in Pittsburgh and it gets really hot and muggy. We are installing the window unit this evening and with all of the other fairly minor complaints I mentioned above, I am looking for advice on asking them kindly to monitor their usage.with the AC Unit.  

It is a standard electric window unit so putting a lock on it to keep in above a certain temperature is not and option, and we cannot separate the electric bill since we've already listed utilities as included in the lease and all of the electric runs on the same meter. 

I was thinking of asking if they could please be considerate of their usage for consideration of energy costs and if they aren't in the apartment for extended periods of time that they either keep the temperature at a higher degree or even shut the unit off. My husband suggested we just install the unit and see how its goes for the first week, saving any hassle if they are responsible about the usage. I'm concerned, one, if we let it go for a few weeks and they aren't responsible then the electric bill will be through the roof, and two that it will be more difficult to ask them to cut back on the usage after we already let it go. 

Any suggestions anyone could provide are really appreciated!

Thank you!