Enforceability of an Apartment Lease Bearing a Forged Signature

Attorney Answer

A lease you never signed does not bind you — but the burden of showing the signature isn't yours falls on you, and that is where the work and the cost actually go.

Idaho Code § 18-3601 defines forgery to include falsely making, altering or counterfeiting a "deed, lease, indenture, writing obligatory," and counterfeiting the handwriting of another. Putting your name on an apartment lease without your authority is therefore a crime in Idaho.

What that statute does not do is answer the question you actually care about — whether the landlord can collect rent or damages from you. Section 18-3601 is criminal only. Your position on the lease itself rests on ordinary contract ground: you never agreed to it, so there is no agreement to enforce against you. Those are two separate tracks, and a police report does not automatically clear the lease.

What this is likely to cost

It depends entirely on what is being demanded of you. If the landlord has only sent letters, a well-documented written dispute often ends it and costs nothing. If you have been sued or sent to collections, that is when a lawyer earns the fee.

Lawyers handle this three ways: hourly, a flat fee for a defined task (a demand letter, one hearing, a document review), or occasionally on contingency where the other side may be ordered to pay fees. Ask three questions on the first call — what is the total likely cost, what deposit do you need, and what is not included. Before you pay anything, check Idaho Legal Aid Services, the Idaho State Bar's lawyer referral service, and any law school clinic in your area.

What you can do

1. Write to the landlord today stating plainly that you did not sign the lease and did not authorize anyone to sign for you, and demand a copy of the full file — the lease, the application, and any ID that was presented. 2. Preserve samples of your real signature from around that date: signed ID, checks, prior leases, loan documents. 3. Pull your credit reports from all three bureaus and look for the account and for anything else opened in your name. 4. If someone used your identity, file a police report — and get the report number. 5. Do not pay anything toward the lease, even a partial payment "to make it go away." Payment is the strongest argument the landlord has that you accepted it. 6. If a lawsuit or collection notice arrives, respond by the date on the papers. Ignoring it converts a case you should win into a judgment you have to undo.