Roommate situation in Bay Area, California
Hello and thank you in advance for your help. Single family home is rented to 4 girl friends with a one-year lease. One moved out two weeks ago, gave the others a month notice and payed rent to cover till the end of this month. In the last year, group has been responsive and we have no issue continuing to work with them.
Payments are done through Cozy. For roommates convenience there are 4 accounts set up for online payments but ultimately it's managed as one payment. If one is late, everyone is late. There is a joint and several liability clause in the contract.
I'm researching local ordinances on the number of unrelated people allowed per home. One of the remaining roommates states her brother and his girlfriend want to move in. If ok w/ city, and ok w/ us for this couple to move in, would need to set up a new contract correct? Or change previous contract with an addendum?
With a group, it's understandable that moves may happen more often as compared a single family. I do want to add to the contract that a tenant can pay an extra fee of two month's rent if they wish to be released from the lease early to ease hardship on remaining group. Is this something we can do in CA? Then, if a new roommate is found before end of the two months, should pro-rated amount be redistributed equally to remaining roommates?
BTW, we plan to complete a thorough background/credit check just as we did w/ current tenants. I know it is potentially more 'hassle' to handle a roommate vs single family situation. But as I mentioned, we'd like to work with our tenants in the current situation.
Also, since we plan to return the deposit at the end of the lease, next year, this means the remaining group will have to figure it out in terms of deposit payments between them, the person that left and the new people correct?
I'm thinking we should also assign a single person return designation for the security deposit at the end of the lease to make things clear. Thank you! Let me know if you there are additional details I should think of.