September 2, 2009

• Living Arrangement Ethics, When one Roommate Leaves

  I am curious about your opinions as to what one’s obligations are to a roommate and what constitutes ethical behavior when leaving an apartment or house you share with a roommate.

  I’ve seen a lot of conflicting opinions on this. I’ve seen conflicts where the roommate left behind felt devastated and betrayed and other times when the circumstances seemed almost identical when the roommate considered it a perfectly reasonable decision and didn’t feel upset about it at all.

  There are certain important characteristics about roommate living arrangements and I was wondering to what extent each characteristic influences the moral standing of the roommates, both the one leaving and the one staying behind.

  1. Who is on the Lease?
  If one person’s name is on the lease and the other person pays them, is it wrong for the person on the lease to choose to move into an apartment and force the other out to find their own place? Is it wrong for the other person to leave?

  I’ve seen people say the other person leaving basically screws the lease holder since they are responsible for the entirety of the rent. On the other hand I’ve heard people argue that the person who left did nothing wrong because the lease holder was foolish not to have put the first person’s name on the lease.

  2. How much notice is given?
  These days most formal leasing offices where both roommate’s names are on the lease require both roommates to be equally financially responsible provided the person leaving gives 60 days notice prior to leaving. In that sense the person left behind would always have sixty days to find a roommate before having to pay the entirety of the rent.  Is this enough time?  

  In addition a lot of leasing offices allow existing residents to downgrade to a smaller apartment mid-lease if it is available. Does that change the equation?  

  If it’s an informal leasing arrangement how much notice ought to be given? Obviously announcing you are moving today and then moving out and failing to pay any more of the rent thereafter would be too soon, but is two weeks enough? A month? Two months? Or three?

  Should the roommate who is leaving be required to stick around until the roommate who is staying finds another roommate or downgrades to a smaller apartment?  That can be tricky to manage financially precisely because of the sixty day notice requirement most complexes require.

  3. Lease Renewal Time:
  Is it any less or more ethically questionable if a person leaves a lease around when the lease comes up for renewal? On the one hand doing so leaves the person left behind more options since they don’t have to find another roommate, they can simply choose not to renew their lease and choose to find another apartment complex or other living arrangement.

  On the other hand it might put more pressure on the person being left behind if the person leaves around lease renewal time because that person will have to make a decision immediately (or within two months, or however much notice was given) about whether or not to renew the lease. And if they do renew they will be stuck in the apartment for another 12 months or more, unless they shell out more for a smaller lease term.

  4. Outside of Lease Assistance
  Is the person leaving the lease ethically required to assist the person staying behind? To what extent and for how long does that obligation last?

  I’ve seen people go out of their way to help their roommates after leaving them, offering not only to help them find a new roommate, or find another cheaper place to live, but also to continue to help paying part or all of their share of the rent effectively indefinitely or until they find another roommate or downgrade to a smaller apartment or move out. I’ve also seen people offer no assistance and just leave considering fulfilling their legal financial obligations to be the full extent of their ethical responsibility.  Is either of these proper or fair? If not what is?

  5. Connection to your Roommate
  To what extent does your connection to your roommate determine what your ethical obligations ought to be? That is, if you and your roommate are basically strangers that just happen to live together, maybe you should feel no obligation to consult with or obtain the consent of your roommate when making a living arrangement decision that is best for you.

  However, if you two are friends, is it wrong for one person to make such a decision without consulting with the other? OK what if the two are friends and one does consult with the other and the other orders them or demands that they stay? Are they then ethically required to stay? What if they can’t afford to stay? Or what if it’s much more financially in their favor to leave? What if the person left behind can’t afford the apartment if his or her roommate leaves?

  Does it make a difference if you’ve been friends for many years versus if you’ve been friends only for a few months? What if you’ve treated each other effectively like family before or if you weren’t very close but more like just amiable friends?

  Does it change the equation if you are family? Does it change the equation if you are or were in a relationship?

  Would a friend leaving a shared apartment in a manner you did not feel was ethically appropriate cause you to discontinue that friendship? Would it cause you to disown a family member? Breakup with a boyfriend/girlfriend? Or not consider entering into a relationship/friendship with someone who was otherwise a potential partner/friend?

  6. Problems with your Room Mate

  How much does problems you may or may not be having with your room mate change the equation? If your room mate you feel has been being very bad to you or being a very bad roommate does that lessen your obligation? IF your room mate is a slob or is really loud or or inconsiderate or your room mate has been late on rent or has been really irresponsible or not sharing the burden on stocking up and supplying the apartment does that matter?

  Does it matter whether or not you knew about those traits about your roommate BEFORE you moved in with them? Does it matter if the person didn’t exhibit those traits before but became more that way the longer you lived with them?  If the person you moved in with is not the person you currently live with does that make you more justified in choosing to leave? Does it make you more justified in not being as considerate with the mechanism you use in leaving?

  What is your obligation to try and work out your differences with your roommate? How long is a reasonable amount of time to try?  A month? Two? If it’s a friend do you owe it to that friend to work as long and as hard as possible to work things out? If it’s family? What if you feel your friendship would have a better chance of healing if you weren’t roommates? That is maybe the close proximity is precisely the problem. Would that mean moving out is more justified or that trying to work things out would be a waste of time? Or would that just be a cop out, an excuse for not trying to resolve complex difficult relationship issues?

  7. Reasons for Leaving -
  How much does a person’s reasons for leaving determine their ethical standing?  If a person is leaving just because they found a new place that is cheaper is that more ethically questionable?  What if someone took on more financial burdens and needs a cheaper place? What if someone lost a job and can no longer afford the shared dwelling?

  What if a person is leaving because of another good opportunity? Like a job further away that pays more or that they think they will be happier in? Or to take classes somewhere? Or if it’s a once in a life time opportunity?

  What if a person leaves because they just don’t LIKE the apartment very much? It’s too small or he or she doesn’t like the community or where it’s located or it has cockroaches?

  What if the person leaves, to move in with a person they are in a relationship with? Would you feel snubbed because of that? Does it matter how long they were in that relationship or how serious the relationship was? If it were like after a month would you be outraged? If it were after dating for two years would you be resigned and have considered it inevitable?

  What if they aren’t leaving to live with someone they are in a relationship with but to live with a different friend that they get along with better? That would probably sting a lot right? Especially if that was their main reason.

  What if a person leaves in order to increase their chances of finding a mate? That they consider their existing roommate to be “cramping their style”?  Or even just because the person they are currently in a relationship with doesn’t like their roommate or because their roommate doesn’t like that person they are in a relationship with? Or flip it around. What if you don’t like the person the person who is remaining behind is in a relationship with? Or that person clearly doesn’t like you?

  Or what if you are just having generic problems with your roommate? Is that reason enough to leave? See 6 above.

  Or what if you are just completely miserable where you are and don’t KNOW why, but know you need to do some kind of change in order to become happy so you try moving in order to enact SOME kind of change that might make you happier? What if it is a way of coping with depression?

  And if fact are you even ethically required to even EXPLAIN your reasons? Can you just leave “because I said so”? Can you leave on a whim? I mean it’s your life isn’t it? Your roommate isn’t your parent or your boss. But is it certainly more polite to explain? Is it unreasonable and rude not to?  This certainly connects to #5 above too right? Maybe if you hardly know your roommate at all you shouldn’t have to explain but if you are close friends it’s more immoral to leave without explanation?  What if you are leaving to engage in some clandestine operations that you aren’t allowed to tell your roommate or don’t want to tell them in order to keep them safe?

  8. Legal Obligations?
  A lot above has to do with financial obligations and moral obligations but what about legal obligations? What if the roommate leaving refuses to sign a renewal of their lease? Is that moral? Is it legal?  What if the roommate leaving tries to get a lease transfer or a lease exodus and follows all the reasonable required financial obligations but it requires their roommate’s signature letting them out of the lease? What if the roommate staying behind refuses to let them out of their lease? Is that moral? Is it legal?  Can you sue a roommate who is leaving for the remainder of the terms of their lease if they leave in the middle of the year? Can you get a court order to require a roommate to let you out of a lease? Is getting the law involved moral? Under what circumstances would it be? What if there are some sneaky clauses inside the lease that one or the other roommates weren’t aware of that makes it harder to leave a lease when you having a roommate or that makes it easier?

  9. Other considerations?

  Have I missed anything? Any important category of concerns that goes into determining the ethics of roommates leaving a living arrangement?

  What else goes into account when trying to determine the morality of leaving or staying with a roommate? How do you balance your own happiness, your financial concerns, and that of your roommate, with your ethical obligations?

  ——————-

  In my experience I’ve noticed certain truths:
  1. being roommates almost always seems to degrade friendships
  2. in situations where one roommate leaves and the other is left behind, hard feelings are very common, regardless of the circumstances,  especially in the person left behind, whereas if both leave at the same time hard feelings are less common
  3. friends or family of each party tend to side with the party they are friends or family with independent of the facts
  4. society, generally, tends to be more critical of the person leaving a living arrangement so the onus of the ethical obligation tends to be on them. also the person leaving, generally feels more guilty over leaving and is expected to. I’m not sure that’s entirely fair in all or even most circumstances.
  5. however, that social critique is natural consequent of a lot of circumstances where one roommate has left another effectively “stuck with the bill” especially prior to apartment complexes creating strict and reasonable rules for giving notice and mutual agreement for getting out of a lease.
  6. Informal living arrangements with no contract or lease far too often end in disaster. they only seem to work out when they are short lived or when the roommates really are extremely extremely close. Also informal living arrangements tend to be those most likely to result in one person screwing another directly, sometimes deliberately and knowingly.

  So as for my own personal opinions based on these observations they are as follows:

  If a person is a friend and I was the only name on the lease and it was originally that way I would not care if or when they left or if they stopped contributing to the finances. In effect I would feel as if I was just letting the person, a friend, stay at my place and that person has a right to leave at any time at a moment’s notice. I would not hold it against them.

  I would simply never enter into a informal living arrangement with someone who is not a friend unless I had no other choice. And if I did, I would expect near inevitable disaster.

  If both names are equally on the lease as co-responsible, and are co-contributing, I would say if they are strangers or don’t know each other very well then sixty days is probably a reasonable amount of time to give notice and the strangers don’t owe anything to one another. Both should be completely willing to end the mutual living arrangement at a moment’s notice. That’s just the risk you take when you take on a roommate.

  However if it’s a friend, especially a close friend. Then I think your ethical obligations are somewhat stronger.

  Probably the sooner you inform your friend that you are considering moving out the better. If you decide at a moment’s notice you should tell your friend immediately.  The sixty day notice is the minimum.

  If you are moving out you should be willing to help your friend search for a roommate if they desire your help. I wouldn’t say you have to find that roommate before moving out but I would say you should exert reasonable effort to help at least for the duration of the 60 day period you are moving out if that is at all possible. Alternatively you should try to help them find a cheaper place if they can’t afford the existing apartment or find some other living arrangement or even help them find another job that pays more. Again all that is conditional on the friend wanting your help which they might not.

  I think beyond that you don’t have any other obligations provided you are meeting your legal financial obligations and giving that 60 day period. However, if you do want to offer more assistance, including financial assistance while your roommate continues to look that’s even better. Though not necessary, it’s definitely a nice thing to do. I would almost certainly do so if I am able, but for no more than two months beyond the sixty days of notice and unless I was really rich, probably not more than half what my financial obligation would have been had I continued to live there. However, if I moved out at the end of the lease I would be much less inclined to do that since I wouldn’t feel as if I were sticking the person in an expensive apartment for the remainder of the year.

  As a general rule for friendship I think there’s an obligation to try and work out substantive differences through communication if you desire to continue the friendship or continue the friendship at the same level of closeness.  But that I think is independent of the decision to leave or not to leave an apartment. If possible it should start before but if it hasn’t then it’s never too late to start trying to work things out whether living separately or together.

  Anyway, what are your thoughts? Do you have your own personal experiences? How did you resolve your differences with your roommate(s)? Or did it all go down in flames?

  • 12:07 pm
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