owner occupied 2 family unit in nj. the tenants in one of the units (Carl) then rents out a room to someone else (Bob) w/o the owners knowledge. the lease is now between Carl and Bob.
are the laws the same for regular landlord tenant laws? what happens if Bob doesn’t pay Carl, now Carl doesnt pay the landlord? how can the landlord evict Bob, if they had no knowledge of Bob living there? And what rights does Carl have to evict Bob? My guess is none, but I’m not sure how this works. are the landlord tenant laws applicable here, if the rightful landlord never signed over a least to Bob.
That is what you call subletting (basically a renter renting to a renter, whether its all or just part of the said property). Most leases do not allow this. So if your landlord finds out about it, you and/or your tenant (both of you) could be evicted for violating the terms of your lease.
-Are the laws the same for regular landlord tenant laws?
The laws are typically the same. But they vary state by state.
-what happens if Bob doesn’t pay Carl, now Carl doesnt pay the landlord?
They both get evicted, or if you want to get technical, “Carl et al”, which means Carl and/or anyone else living there. The parent lease supersedes the child lease.
how can the landlord evict Bob, if they had no knowledge of Bob living there?
See the answer above. If the tenant doesn’t show up to court, everyone in the house gets evicted - anyone and everyone. If the tenant (Bob) shows up, and puts up a fight, in a worse case scenario the judge will probably make the landlord file a new eviction in the name of the guy who showed up at court. So sooner or later he will be evicted.
And what rights does Carl have to evict Bob?
He has the full rights to evict him, if the lease was setup correctly. If you are doing something like sharing a room in your house with the guy, that can complicate matters a little, but you still have the full rights to evict him.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer and the above advice is based on my experience in Texas eviction courts. Laws vary state by state, but unless you are in a place like California where tenants have more rights than landlords, it is probably a similar situation in your state.
It looks to me like Bob is a roommate. So roommate laws applies rather than landlord tenant law.
What does roommate law say? I have no idea. Maybe there is some sort of local tenants rights organization that would know.
If Bob doesn’t pay rent and then Carl can’t pay the rent, the landlord is going to evict “Carl and all others”. That means everybody will be out, not just Bob.
The landlord can not evict just Bob, although the landlord can evict a tenant even if he had no knowledge that tenant had moved in and no signed agreement with that tenant. He just can not do a partial eviction and remove half the tenants. It’s everybody out.
This is Carl’s problem. He’s the one who let the deadbeat in without permission, so he is the one that gets to deal with it. Sounds to me like Carl is about to lose his place to live. It also sounds like Carl brought it down on his own head by doing something stupid that is going to have bad consequences.
It’s up to Carl to get rid of his non-paying guest. But if Carl does not pay the rent, he is getting himself evicted, too.
As a landlord, I’d be wanting to get Carl out anyway, just for violating his rental agreement and letting a roommate in without screening and approval, thereby causing me a lot of trouble. He’s not exactly a reliable and trustworthy tenant.