Mom's lease duties lost in details

Q: My son and his roommate, both college students, applied for a rental that required a guarantor. I signed the lease application but never signed the guarantee. Am I responsible for rent and damage if the boys can't cover the rent or trash the place? --Lori S.

A: Being a lease guarantor for a college-age son or daughter is very common. Landlords need to make sure that there's a solid source of funds if the students, most of whom have little to no income, fall behind on the rent or cause damage beyond normal wear and tear.

But landlords need to follow standard legal rules when setting up lease guarantors. The landlord probably had you sign a lease application in order to obtain information about you -- your income, place of employment, place of residence -- that the landlord could use to make sure you'd be a suitable guarantor (someone with scant income won't be too useful if the time comes to call upon the guarantor).

In addition, that signature probably signaled your consent to pull a credit report. Legally, landlords don't need written consent as long as they have a permissible reason for pulling the report, but most landlords ask for written consent anyway because most people think it's required.

But the next step is crucial: The proposed guarantor, if accepted, must sign either the lease itself or a guarantee agreement that references the lease. Because you apparently did neither, you have not become a guarantor. It seems that the landlord simply forgot to have you sign one of these two documents.

Not to impute sinister motives to the landlord ... but take another look at that application. Make sure there's nothing in it indicating your agreement to become a guarantor if the landlord finds you suitable. That would be a sneaky move, and I doubt that a court would uphold it: It would bind you to stand behind a lease that you haven't seen yet.

That's not an enforceable promise -- people need to know what they're guaranteeing before a court will insist that they step up.

Q: I believe the contractors working on our apartment complex damaged my wife's car. I looked at the car carefully when I left for work early in the morning (I was intending to wax it), before the workmen had arrived. Two hours later, when my wife went out, it was damaged. But we have no eyewitnesses, and the contractors deny it. Our management company, after initially saying that their insurance will cover it, now says they aren't responsible, though they have offered to pay my deductible if I agree in writing not to tell other tenants about the event.

But get this: The day after we made our complaint, signs appeared in the same area, telling tenants not to park there during construction. Isn't that tantamount to an admission by management that they were negligent by not warning us earlier? I'm looking at $1,000 worth of damage. --Michael B. ...CONTINUED

All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.