If I rent a single family residence to unrelated tenants (friends or whatever), I set up these rules:

- One is the responsible tenant, and he/she is responsible for the rent every month. He /she signs the rental agreement.

- Other tenants are identified, screened, and they go on the lease under "other occupants".

- If the responsible tenant leaves, all occupants must leave, unless they want to stay and one of them is qualify to be the new responsible tenant. A new rental agreement is written and signed.

- If a tenant wants to leave, the responsible tenant can replace him/her with a new tenant, qualified and verified.

- Absolutely no sub leasing allowed.

How do you handle situations like this?

I put all tenants are 18 and older as jointly and severely liable. They can work it out among themselves how to pool the rent funds but I get one payment.

Fred... aside of any CA. laws..

Name everyone who lives there on the agreement and

‘Jointly & severally’:

means all tenants & roommates as one tenancy.

‘AN ACTION BY ONE IS AN ACTION FOR ALL’

THE TENANTS IN THIS AGREEMENT, APPOINT EACH OTHER AS THEIR REPRESENTATIVE REGARDING THE PROPERTY AND FURTHER IT IS AGREED THAT ANY ACTION TAKEN BY ONE TENANT REPRESENTS THE ACTIONS AND INTENTION OF ALL TENANTS.

EACH OF THE TENANTS, ROOMMATES, WHETHER OR NOT IN ACTUAL POSSESSION OF THE PREMISES, ARE JOINTLY AND SEVERALLY LIABLE FOR ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO RENT AND ALL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM ANY BREACH OF THIS AGREEMENT.

SO TOO ARE ANY GUARANTORS BY SEPARATE AGREEMENT.

ROOMMATE OR JOINT TENANCY: THE FOUR UNITIES.

1) UNITY OF INTEREST IS THE REQUIREMENT THAT IN DURATION, EXTENT, AND NATURE, ALL JOINT-TENANTS HAVE THE SAME INTEREST AND RESPONSIBILITIES.

Is this working for you? Or just in theory, should work?

plenty MO in the world of collections from deadbeats this plan from Fred CA is a disaster.

OPM OR has it right and some extra stuff as far as my I see.

The more on the hook for debt the better chance of compliance and payment. Theroy being the more pockets to pick the better picking (in long run).

Fred, that quite similar to how I handled a house I bought that came with a group. Technically one tenant was on the lease, her best friend and mom were 'staying' there.

I didn't have any rules at first, but the rules evolved, which I use on all my houses. I went to tell tenant's mom something, she didn't want to be responsible for passing the information on (she was respectful,) and pointed out that I needed to tell the tenant. She was right, and it helped me set up the rule of 'one responsible person,' which is the tenant.

I haven't used this much, because I'm a small -time landlord that started after the last housing crash, but it has worked very well in a handful of times.

When others have said to me, ' you shouldn't let anyone else (besides tenants) stay there' , I say I let my tenants help others out. If they don't ever help others out, who is going to help them when they need it?

I usually run into the situation where I have a group of coworkers who are in town for a period of time.

They're all responsible for everything. Usually, one of them ends up being the Responsible One, who they funnel all communication to me through, and who I rely on to funnel communication to the others. But I let them work that out themselves.

Just to make it clear:

- I have been in business since 1976.

- I rent out unfurnished single family residences only. Not apartments, not rooms, not garages.

- I rent "long term", my SFRs are not motels. BRNB, temporary shelters, executive residences...etc.

- "Situation" is not a hypothetical scenario. In my first experience with room mates, some 30 years ago, they were all on the lease. Room mate A paid one month, room mate B paid but room mate C did not.

I didn't like that. I had to work hard to evict room mate C.

- After that I changed the lease to "One responsible tenant" and never had had trouble again.

Myob, GA: I don't have the kind of troubles you are having, from what I have read in your posts, because both you and me are not running the same operations.

Fred your first 3 bullets is what we have. We started in 86 though. To clarify-- all ON lease are responsible for the rent. We don't accept multiple checks or excuses "oh roomate #3 doesn't have his portion" there are no "portions"-- its due on one payment in FULL.

Second and most important many deep pockets and troubled tenants are a HUGE part of our business. (Bernie Sanders HUGE) The income stream from collections (we only collect our own debt) pays the salary of the office management.

I guess I can't understand Why you would only one one person to owe you if there are problems-- because we all know eventually with roomies there's going to be a problem. I want as many deep pockets as possible to pick from.