Left Uni - but they are taking me to court over halls of residence fees

iNFLUENCE_2

You have a fairly touch situation - your doing right by keeping a record of everything. There isnt a lot you can do obviously if the credit agency does decide to take you to court, however the money owed is almost certainly going to lad the case in the small claims court, which means the judge can come to a decision based on what he things is fair and not what the letter of the law says (English law works - sometimes).

Given the situation I think you'd have to be up against a pretty harsh judge to have to pay. Especially given the fact that you will be able to prove literally everything except that actual permission was granted (i.e. prove that your daughter was a witness to an attack, the person who was authorised to give people like your daughter permission to leave, did cease to work for the halls of residence etc)

iNFLUENCE_2

Torby wrote: »

finally "out of the blue"....you received no other correspondance requesting payment....or you simply ignored anything that came?

Did the student advise the uni they were leaving...or is it a case that they just went home and ultimately as a result of not showing up for lectures or submitting work...they failed the first year.

I would have thought that if the uni was notified on a certain date....they may easier accept the fact the halls were vacated on or around that date.

I suspect the "out of the blue comment" referred to it being passed to a debt collection agency and therefore the OP is now not dealing with the University. I assume the OP thought they were going to continue to try and resolve the problem with the University itself.

Also I fail to see what the student leaving at the end of the year has anything to do with it? The OP said thier child left the halls at Christmas in her first year. Therefore informing the Uni that she left at the end of the first year would make absolutly no diffrence in them accepting she had vacated her halls of residence at Christmas.

olibrofiz

Been thinking about this, it's unfortunate the person giving 'permission' has left the Uni. I'm assuming most Unis have a complaints proceedure, check on the Unis website to see if they have details of this and write a letter appealing against the charge - send the letter to the relevant person and a copy to the debt agency. IMO it's no good if you only wrote to the finance office, and if you appeal to them again they'll just say it's out of their hands now.

Normally the letter will need to come from the student, here's a suggestion

'I have recently been contacted by .... regarding an outstanding debt for Uni accommodation. I decided to leave halls following an incident which involved the police and left me fearing for my own safety. After discussions with your accommodation office I followed their advice and moved out on .... (DON'T MENTION THE TV) At that point I sent many emails enquiring what to do with the keys, to which I got no response, and I have since found out that the person advising me has left. As this was my first time away from home and in unfamilliar surroundings I am extremely distressed that I appear to have been incorrectly advised by a department at the Uni resulting in me being taken to court. It was my understanding that Unis have a duty of care to their students and I feel I have been badly let down. I have no problem paying for the first terms accommodation/I have paid for the first terms accommodation, however I cannot understand why I am being asked to pay for a further term when I was not living in halls and I followed the advice given by accommodation. I would be most grateful if this matter could be looked into and I look forward to a reply within 14 days of the date of this letter.'

Lot of waffle? Maybe But you don't know till you try. You may have already gone via the complaints procedure?

Torby

"I'm assuming most Unis have a complaints proceedure, check on the Unis website to see if they have details of this "....

sorry to say this, but if they couldn't find the accomodation services offices on the web site....the chances of them finding this are slim....

hate to be the devils advocate....but it sounds like they should have really done more at the time....and the reaction now is to try and find some way to disentangle the mess created by doing nothing.

theres 3 sides to most stories, your way, their way....and the right way.

interesting as well thar terized hasn't fed back any more info...e.g. which uni

olibrofiz

Ok, sometimes students don't do things 'the right way'. Of course there's the 'right way', but hands up who hasn't gone through life without making a mistake. Maybe the OP has resolved it now.

No they shouldn't have let it slide but there's no harm in trying to resolve something, at whatever stage it's got to. And as for finding the info on the website, if you had an 18 year old that was verbally told the procedure to follow by someone 'in authority', and it sounded ok to them, how many parents would think 'hang on a minute I'll just check the policies & procedures'.

You'd be surprised at the queries we get. And at 18 a student is classed as an adult and even if the parent IS footing the bill we can't discuss their child with them. So even if OP spoke to the Uni they wouldn't/shouldn't discuss an individual case.

Not having a go BTW Just know how 'helpless/hopeless' SOME (note SOME) students can be, leaving their parents in the ....

iNFLUENCE_2

olibrofiz wrote: »

Ok, sometimes students don't do things 'the right way'. Of course there's the 'right way', but hands up who hasn't gone through life without making a mistake. Maybe the OP has resolved it now.

No they shouldn't have let it slide but there's no harm in trying to resolve something, at whatever stage it's got to. And as for finding the info on the website, if you had an 18 year old that was verbally told the procedure to follow by someone 'in authority', and it sounded ok to them, how many parents would think 'hang on a minute I'll just check the policies & procedures'.

You'd be surprised at the queries we get. And at 18 a student is classed as an adult and even if the parent IS footing the bill we can't discuss their child with them. So even if OP spoke to the Uni they wouldn't/shouldn't discuss an individual case.

Not having a go BTW Just know how 'helpless/hopeless' SOME (note SOME) students can be, leaving their parents in the ....

Very sensible post, noticed on this board (im still fairly new) that a lot of people are very quick to give harsh responses if a poster hasnt done everything perfectly and may have made a mistake or a poor decision.

At the end of the day the OP only trying to fix the mistake they are now in, maybe they in the situation becuase we didnt do anything, but it doesnt exactly warrant some of the posts on this thread, providing no help and merely telling the OP what they SHOULD have done previosuly.

Oldernotwiser

olibrofiz wrote: »

Not having a go BTW Just know how 'helpless/hopeless' SOME (note SOME) students can be, leaving their parents in the ....

And they'll carry on being helpless/hopeless if their parents keep digging them out of it!

Torby

iNFLUENCE wrote: »

Very sensible post, noticed on this board (im still fairly new) that a lot of people are very quick to give harsh responses if a poster hasnt done everything perfectly and may have made a mistake or a poor decision.

At the end of the day the OP only trying to fix the mistake they are now in, maybe they in the situation becuase we didnt do anything, but it doesnt exactly warrant some of the posts on this thread, providing no help and merely telling the OP what they SHOULD have done previosuly.

Since when has being factual being "harsh"....I think in the absence of the original poster coming back with more info....it sounds like " walked away from problem, buried head in sand, ignore evrything we should have done...yikes now our lack of trying to deal with/ sort the problem at the time has come back to bite us big time!"....i.e. we're being chased for money....

Things don't normally go from....invoice for last months accomodation (details of which are known in advance AND student/guardian normally signs accepting terms) straight to debt collection agency....if there was no follow up communication....letters requesting payment, letters requesting final payment, letters threatening action to escalate debt recovery, letters informing the debt was handed to debt collection agency, no details online at the uni web site about how/where to contact the accomodation services, added to which the student didn't appear to notify the Uni they were quitting the course until the end of the year.

Then who is to blame for the stick my head in the sand attitude? Granted you would want to try and sort it now....no one likes debt collectors or bailiffs....but who's fault is it that its got to this stage....

Not accomodation service or the Uni....don't forget most halls have staff in situ for some periods during the week....and how many emails do you send without reply before you try something else....


Sorry, but I think its reasonable to expect someone going to Uni to have a bit more common sense and you would like to think the parents would have as well....

"At the end of the day the OP only trying to fix the mistake they are now in, maybe they in the situation becuase we didnt do anything, but it doesnt exactly warrant some of the posts on this thread, providing no help and merely telling the OP what they SHOULD have done previosuly."

At the end of the day what I'm printing may, to you, sound harsh....but I believe I'm saying what the Uni and Halls and Bailiffs may say...my advice is (iNFLUENCE: since you seem concerned that advice should be given) is accept that things were done wrong, either through lack of concern on how to do things right OR lets all walk away it won't come back to haunt us...pay the bill and move on....your next problem will probably be re the student loan, grant or allowance or whatever you care to call it....because if it was taken/used....I'd say theres a chance someone may come looking for that next....money for 3 semesters and only 1 studied?

iNFLUENCE_2

Torby wrote: »

Since when has being factual being "harsh"....I think in the absence of the original poster coming back with more info....it sounds like " walked away from problem, buried head in sand, ignore evrything we should have done...yikes now our lack of trying to deal with/ sort the problem at the time has come back to bite us big time!"....i.e. we're being chased for money....

Things don't normally go from....invoice for last months accomodation (details of which are known in advance AND student/guardian normally signs accepting terms) straight to debt collection agency....if there was no follow up communication....letters requesting payment, letters requesting final payment, letters threatening action to escalate debt recovery, letters informing the debt was handed to debt collection agency, no details online at the uni web site about how/where to contact the accomodation services, added to which the student didn't appear to notify the Uni they were quitting the course until the end of the year.

I agree they dont, but thats what the OP claims has happened - we cant give advice based on assuming the OP has told us a diffrent story and we choose to disbelieve them can we? What if according to the universities records she was still living in halls all year and so all notices of overdue money owed where sent to the halls and not home, seen as halls are her term time residence. This is what happened at my halls of residence, it happened to me (addmittedly only beuase I chnaged debit card numbers and they tried to chage a debit card that had expired). So im suggesting its highly possible that the first notice going home could be from a debt collection agency. Also guardians do not usually sign anything with regards to University accomodation - it is the responsbility of the student and the student only. The parents might pay the rent, but they dont sign anthing. Certainly not in any universities i've ever heard of.

Again i'll state this: the OP's daughter DID NOT LEAVE UNI WHEN THEY LEFT THE ACCOMODATION. Them leaving Uni has nothing to do with this at all.

Torby wrote: »

Then who is to blame for the stick my head in the sand attitude? Granted you would want to try and sort it now....no one likes debt collectors or bailiffs....but who's fault is it that its got to this stage....

Not accomodation service or the Uni....don't forget most halls have staff in situ for some periods during the week....and how many emails do you send without reply before you try something else....


Sorry, but I think its reasonable to expect someone going to Uni to have a bit more common sense and you would like to think the parents would have as well....

"At the end of the day the OP only trying to fix the mistake they are now in, maybe they in the situation becuase we didnt do anything, but it doesnt exactly warrant some of the posts on this thread, providing no help and merely telling the OP what they SHOULD have done previosuly."

At the end of the day what I'm printing may, to you, sound harsh....but I believe I'm saying what the Uni and Halls and Bailiffs may say...my advice is (iNFLUENCE: since you seem concerned that advice should be given) is accept that things were done wrong, either through lack of concern on how to do things right OR lets all walk away it won't come back to haunt us...pay the bill and move on....your next problem will probably be re the student loan, grant or allowance or whatever you care to call it....because if it was taken/used....I'd say theres a chance someone may come looking for that next....money for 3 semesters and only 1 studied?

Did you read the OP post at all? The student left after the first year, and Uni has 2 semesters and not 3, so god knows where your comming from there?

Since when does this site advocate "just paying a bill" and moving on where the bill in the first place is unjust? If the OP duaghter had just left halls and not told anyone I would agree, they are 100% and fault AND the bill is justified. But here, they were told by a member of staff who had the ability to agree to sever a contract and stop money being owed from that point forward.

kimmoss88

iNFLUENCE wrote: »

Did you read the OP post at all? The student left after the first year, and Uni has 2 semesters and not 3, so god knows where your comming from there?

There were 3 semesters at unis this year because of the early Easter.