cosigned and having problems

me and my husband cosigned for my husbands cousin to rent a house. he is now moving out of the house before the lease is up and apparently has damaged the house in some way and the company the house is through is coming after us for the remainder of the rent for the next 9 months plus the two months that they have not paid while living there and the cost for repairs. we were forced to cosign for them b/c we were living in the house doing a lease to own and my husband became unemployed so we were unable to make our house payment so the company the house is through told us if we would find someone to move in they would break our lease and when we found my husbands cousin was interested in the house we thought that would be end of the problem but when his cousin went to the companies office to fill out the paper work they called us to come cosign and said if we did not do it we would be held responsible for the remainder of our lease which was another 6 months so we did cosign and now they are still coming after us. what can we do to take care of this problem? any advice would be greatly appreciated! thanks

You can sue the cousin iin small claims for any payment you may have to make. But ultimately you need him to resolve the issue on the lease, get new lessees etc.