A strange lease issue in CA - charging for the drafting of a new lease?

Hello all

Does this seem right to you? Here's the lodown:

My lease has now entered the month to month phase of things. Initially, when we signed it, there were two of us living in a 2BR condo in SoCal. At the beginning of this month, my roommate moved out on amicable terms. His name, however, remains on the lease.

I'm undertaking the (extremely difficult) process of finding a new roommate. I've informed my landlord (mgmt company) of this and they have told me, in no uncertain terms that they would require a new application + fee (which I expected) for the new roommate but a $100 fee to write up a new lease, as well.

Essentially, they want 100 bucks to remove my previous roommate's name from the lease and stick in the new person, whomever that may be. Does this seem right to you? I would think that they would want me to bring the new tenant to them, so that we could all avoid a subletting issue.

Is subletting allowed in your lease? Don't you have to get the new tenant approved by management before you could sublet? (If you read your lease and rules, I'm sure you do.)

Charging for a new lease is normal. The new roommate will have to complete an application (you may need to fill out a new one too to update your info.) The roommate will need to be screened, employment verified, criminal / rental / civil histories checked, credit report pulled, etc. A new lease must be drafted, typed, and signed by everyone involved. They may even need to contact the old roommate and have him sign off on a form to remove his name from the lease to make it legal. All of this takes time. Those employees don't work for free. Neither does the LL or manager. Credit checks aren't free. And in this economy, LLs aren't absorbing as many of the costs as they used to. The fee pays for these things to be done.

Had you both remained there, you would now be living under a month to month agreement (under the same terms as the old lease) and nothing would need to be done. But since the other roommate is gone, new paperwork needs to be drafted, hence a fee is needed.