Lost bond due to flat mates rent

TeaBoy_2

Just received a letter from previous landlors saying they will be keeping my £200 bond and want some on top because one of us owed £600 for rent.

Although i wasn't really hopeful of getting the bond back anyway, i'm p*****d off because the guy who's not paid has been an !!! and we suspect him of stealing stuff and intercepting all our mail. he's now only having to pay a 5th of his final rent while us muppets share the debt!

We did have a joint tennencey agreement so i'm worried they have every right to claim the money off the lot of us?

I very much doubt i'll be able to get hold of him and he lives the other end of the country.
Theres no way i'll be paying any more than £200 thats for sure, but I want a hundred quid back! and dont want him getting away without paying.
do you think there's anything we can do??

melancholly

do you have contact details for him (or really his parents?)?
i think with a joint tenancy agreement then you may well be liable, but other people on here will know for sure. i'd also make sure his parents know what's going on because they may be able to get him to act a bit mroe like an adult!

TeaBoy_2

his parents should have signed a guarantor thing to say they would be held responsible.

He's actually 24. Its not his maturity, he just has no respect for others. that would probably include his parents.

Crispy_Ambulance

A joint tenancy means that you are all jointly and severally liable for all rent, bills and damage. Your landlord can quite legitimately claim from anyone or all of you. One of the reasons that students should always ask for single tenancies.

you can, however, sue your ex-housemate for their share of the bill. You will need an address for them and it would be best to go and speak to your students union advice centre as they will have done this sort of thing before!

faithless

Yeah, and if the student's union can't help, try your local Citizens Advice Bureau. Whoever you go to see, take all paperwork with you - i.e. your rental contract, and the letter off the landlord saying he's going to keep your deposit and asking for more rent. If it wasn't in letter form ask him to send it to you. He probably will cooperate as will think he's more likely to get more money out of you if he does.

littleange

This happened to me at uni too. One of my housemates hadn't paid his rent, which I didn't know about, I phoned the landlord to ask when I'd be getting my deposit back and he had a right go at me saying I'd been covering for this guy when he'd phoned and things like that really nasty and said he was keeping all deposits to put towards the money he'd lost in rent.

This housemate also owed me £90 for bills for the whole year aswell, and also owed another mate £150 quid which he'd borrowed. We never saw him again.

Went to the citizens advice and they said theres nothing I can do, had to put it down to experience