Free Arizona Roommate Agreement
Arizona is the state where a roommate’s early exit can take the apartment with it. Under A.R.S. § 33-1318(J), when one tenant terminates for domestic violence, “the tenancy for those tenants also terminates” — so the question stops being who covers the share and becomes whether anyone gets to stay.
A roommate agreement is a contract between the roommates. The landlord is not a party to it, it does not change the lease, and it cannot release anyone from it. In Arizona two statutory facts sit around that agreement and both are unusual. The first is that § 33-1317(F) makes two persons per bedroom a presumption written into state law rather than borrowed from federal guidance. The second is § 33-1318(J), which decides what happens to everyone else when one tenant leaves under the domestic-violence provision — and Arizona’s answer is different from almost every other state’s.
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One roommate’s exit can end the tenancy for all of you
In most states a statutory early termination leaves the remaining roommates holding the whole rent. Arizona does something else. § 33-1318(J) provides that where a tenant terminates under the section, the tenancy for the other tenants also terminates. That is not a release from a debt — it is the end of the right to live there. Continued occupancy is a matter for the landlord, and in practice means re-qualifying under whatever screening criteria currently apply. Note: the statute is permissive about releasing the others, so this page does not promise that outcome as automatic; what it does say is that the remaining roommates’ position is decided by the landlord and not by anything written in a roommate agreement. Section 33-1318(I) separately reaches an abuser “regardless of whether” they are a party to the rental agreement.
Watch: Free Arizona Roommate Agreement explained
Arizona roommate agreement at a glance
Occupancy
Two per bedroom, presumed reasonable by statute
That presumption reaches
Every political subdivision in Arizona
If one tenant terminates for DV
The others’ tenancy also terminates
Deposit
One and a half months’ rent maximum
Two per bedroom is state law here, and it overrides your city
§ 33-1317(F) makes two persons per bedroom “presumed reasonable for this state and all political subdivisions of this state”. Two things follow that matter to roommates. First, it is a statutory presumption rather than the federal occupancy guidance most states rely on, so there is a published figure to work to. Second, because it reaches every political subdivision, there is no separate Phoenix or Tucson number to hunt for. The safe harbour is written for the owner, and it is not unconditional: it protects a standard the landlord has already adopted and published, applied without regard to age, or it runs into the familial-status protections at § 41-1491.14. And § 33-1368(A)(1) makes misstating the number of occupants a material breach the landlord can act on, curable in ten days — which is why the number of people actually living there belongs in writing.
How to use an Arizona roommate agreement
Count the bedrooms before you count the roommates
Two per bedroom is presumed reasonable statewide under A.R.S. section 33-1317(F), and it applies in every political subdivision, so the same number applies statewide.
Put the actual number of occupants in the lease paperwork
Misstating it is a material breach under section 33-1368(A)(1), curable within ten days. The roommate agreement is a good place to record who is really living there.
Agree what happens if a roommate terminates under section 33-1318
Arizona is unusual: the tenancy for the remaining tenants also terminates. Agree in advance who speaks to the landlord and how quickly, because the question becomes whether you can stay at all.
Write down the deposit shares
The cap is one and a half months’ rent and the statute contains no rule for splitting it between roommates – whatever you agree is the only allocation that exists.
Keep a signed copy each
The agreement is only useful as evidence if every roommate can produce the same version.
About the Arizona roommate agreement
A roommate agreement settles the questions the lease leaves to the people living together: rooms, rent shares, deposit shares, utilities, guests, cleaning, and what a departing roommate owes the others. It settles none of them against the landlord. Every tenant named on the rental agreement can still be pursued for the whole rent where the lease makes that liability joint and several, as most leases do. The Act itself creates no such rule — § 33-1318(D)’s reference to a tenant being “solely or jointly liable” presupposes whatever the rental agreement did, rather than imposing anything. What this agreement gives you is a claim against each other, which is worth having precisely because the claim the landlord has is not divisible.
What an Arizona roommate agreement should record
- Who is named as a tenant on the rental agreement, and who is not
- The number of people actually occupying the unit, and the number of bedrooms
- Each roommate’s share of the rent, and who pays the landlord
- Each roommate’s share of the deposit, and how it is divided when returned
- That the deposit cap is one and a half months’ rent and the statute does not split it
- What the roommates will do if one of them terminates under § 33-1318
- Guests, and who may authorise one to stay
- The notice a departing roommate gives the others
- Who finds and approves a replacement, and what the landlord requires
- That the agreement binds the roommates only and does not bind the landlord
Common Arizona mistakes
- Assuming the remaining roommates simply absorb the rent. Section 33-1318(J) terminates the tenancy for the other tenants too. The question is not who pays the share, it is whether anyone gets to stay.
- Looking for a city occupancy rule. Section 33-1317(F)’s presumption reaches every political subdivision of the state, so there is no separate municipal figure.
- Misstating the number of occupants on the application or lease. That is material falsification under section 33-1368(A)(1), curable in ten days.
- Expecting the landlord to split the deposit. Section 33-1321 owes the refund to “the tenant” and contains no apportionment rule at all.
- Mixing up Arizona’s three acts. Chapter 10 is the residential act; chapter 11 is mobile home parks and chapter 7 is the older general chapter. They are not interchangeable.
Does Arizona have a roommate law?
No. Reading the whole of the Arizona Residential Landlord and Tenant Act — all 53 sections of title 33 chapter 10, 90,741 characters — returns zero occurrences of “roommate”, “co-tenant”, “co-occupant” or “additional occupant”. There is no statutory right to have a roommate, no process for adding or removing one, and no rule allocating rent between people who share a unit. The words “sublet” and “sublease” appear nowhere in the chapter either.
That is a measured absence rather than an assumption, and it is scoped to chapter 10 — which is where such a rule would sit. It does not describe Arizona case law, which was not searched, or municipal ordinances beyond the reach of the preemption discussed below.
What the Act does contain runs the other way. Section 33-1368(A)(1) makes a material misstatement about the number of occupants a breach the landlord can act on. And § 33-1310(13) defines a rental agreement to include one that