Philadelphia Weekly

REAL ESTATE

Hidden risk of co-signing lease

Rent it Right

By Inman News Feed

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Feb. 23, 2012

If you did -- if you said, for example, that it was crime-free, or extremely safe, or that the tenant would have nothing to fear -- you might have set up an expectation that the tenant was justified in relying on.

That you couldn't deliver on these promises is beside the point: Once you assure the applicant that something important is true, but it turns out not to be true, that applicant can argue that she was misled on a "deal breaker" point. That might give her the legal right to break the lease.

Janet Portman is an attorney and managing editor at Nolo. She specializes in landlord/tenant law and is co-author of "Every Landlord's Legal Guide" and "Every Tenant's Legal Guide." She can be reached at janet@inman.com.