Verbal contracts..How binding are they?

Six days into a lease, my roommate turned psycho on me and claimed she MUST be taken off the lease immediately - ten months early. In an effort to relieve the office staff of her high tempered threats, I agreed to sign a release of responsibility for her (so she would not be charged for any damage incurred after she left) but only on the terms that she write a check to the apartments for her half of the rent for the next month in case I couldn't find another roommate in 17 days. If I found one before June, I would void and otherwise dispose of her payment. I even offered to pro-rate and pay her back the remainder if someone moved in in June. She completely agreed, wrote and signed the check, memo reading: hold until June 1st. We left this with the front office. The next day she canceled the check b/c she felt she was not responsible. Is our agreement binding at all since there were witnesses present?

Where can I find it in writing that it is binding, for proof...

First of all, you need a copy of that check & what says "Hold till June 1st" on. It IS illegal in my state to do that, not sure about your state.

If you signed a section of that paper that says :

"Person departing agrees to pay rent through: This is the date through which both roommates will be held
legally responsible (jointly and severally liable) for the rent on the apartment. This date must be agreed upon by
both roommates and may be any time between the roommate departure date and the end of the lease.

Then you are responsible to what ever date you agreed on in the document.

However, with the "Hold till June 1st" check & if the landlord agrees, you could take her to small claims court & prove that you were lied to & your room mate provided deceitful actions which is why you signed a release of responsibility. The small claims court may force her to pay for 30 days.
I wish you the best of luck but honey, you were scammed! If this EVER happens again...let the room mate to whatever they want as to going psycho on the landlord & don't think about what "other people" think, look out for yourself & beware!

Verbal contracts are very binding with reliable witnesses. Watch any court show and you will see most of the cases do not have written contracts and the way the judge decides is by how much he believes the witnesses. Sounds like you let her off the hook with the landlord by signing that paper so the landlord if anything happened to the apartment could only come after you.

If your roommate signed the apartment lease then an agreement between you and her would have no bearing on the lease with the management.

A verbal agreement isn't at issue here.

She is still legally bound to the terms of the rental lease signed by both of you until and unless the management releases her from the lease.

Unless you have good witnesses then the verbal contract isn't worth a plug nickel.

Yes as long as your witness would will testify or send a notarized statement you could sue for the money.