If you plan to rent an apartment with one or more roommates, your landlord may require separate deposits from each one of you. You have several choices. All of you can sign the lease, which will make you all jointly and severally liable for rent and damages. This means each one of you is fully responsible for all of the rent and all of the damages, if any. If one of you fails to pay the rent, the others will have to come up with her share or face eviction.

Another option is for one of you to sign the lease and “sublet” rooms to one or more roommates. You collect the rent from the others and pay it to the landlord. If one roommate fails to pay the rent, you evict him, deduct the rent from his security deposit, and find a replacement. Before you enter into this type of arrangement, make sure your complex allows subletting.

In any case, it's a good idea to design a written contract spelling out each person's responsibilities, including the amount of rent each will pay, sharing of responsibility for damages, how payment for utilities will be divided, the term of the rental agreement, and liability for rent if one person leaves.