Apartment Lease Contracts?

My girlfriend and I live in California. We were living in an apartment with 2 other roommates. Unfortunately we did not get along with these roomates so we decided to get our own apartment and get out of the current lease. Our roommates signed the Release agreement and we brought it up to the office. The office filed it away in september and told us we were good to go. We called back one month later to make sure that we were off the lease and the apartment lady said "yes you are off the lease". We said okay. We called back one more time to double check and they said the same thing. However, today we recieved a call from the apartments saying "Rent has not been paid, we will contact our lawyers if it is not paid by today" We said "We aren't on the lease anymore and havn't been for 8 months." They told us "well a manager never signed it so it never went through, and your roommates never signed a new lease." What should I do?

I wouldnt do anything, they will do anything to get the money

Get a copy of the release agreement, and take it to a lawyer.

get ready for a court battle, maybe talk to a lawyer

the key is the verbal release by the management toward you and your girlfriend, now maybe since its been 8 months since you have lived in the place combined with the conversations between you and the management, they will be estopped from claiming you are still liable

but this will be up to a court to decided, better answer the complaint when served and show up to court well prepared on the date