Deposit & lazy housemate

robpw2

your not his mother , you cannot demand he does anything and as for unplugging his internet access did you also send him to bed early ?
give him back his deposit

lyndsay1986

He paid his share of the deposit .....he should get his share back !

if you do decide to keep it for yourself then expect to go to court and most likely lose the case plus add on fees .

talulahbeige_2

Isn't keeping someone elses money theft?

Riq

Good luck to your boyfriend is all I can say! You sound like a nightmare.

You cannot keep any of that money, regardless of the laziness of him, you just can't make any deduction.

No court in the land would back you up.

BitterAndTwisted

You'd be in a very weak position to withhold any of his deposit but it wouldn't deter me from holding onto it for as long as I could just be ruddy awkward.

You really should have tackled this when the cleaning was going on and warned him that should the LL make any deductions from the deposit for cleaning it would be coming out of his share......

BexInLondon

Just wanted to say you don't sound like a nightmare to me (but maybe I'm a nighmare too hehe)! I understand how utterly frustrating it can be to live with someone who doesn't do the basics required of adult life, and have experience of this all coming to a head at moving out time.

Having said that, from personal experience I'd strongly advise giving his his share back, albeit through gritted teeth! He'll get his comeuppance one day as it's unlikely he'll change, and it sounds like you'll be better off with him out of your life, and the fastest way to do that is to end all possible financial ties.

I really do understand how irritating, nay infuriating, it is!

foolishboy

Completely understand your position but unless you told him at the time you'd deduct money from the deposit for your cleaning efforts you really should just return the whole lot. Not worth the agro surely !?!

FB

Jowo_2

foolishboy wrote: »

...Not worth the agro surely !?!

But there's no aggro in punishing a lazy flatmate by witholding the deposit until they take legal action - its the flatmate that actually has to pull their thumb out of their bum and do all the work to raise a small claims court action. All the OP has to do is spend 5 mins writing a cheque and putting it in a postbox once they've had their fun.

As it happens, i bet this lazy and disorganised flatmate will show a lot more motivation in claiming their deposit than picking up a j-cloth, but there you go.

It is petty of the OP but if she wants to tease her flatmate, then there's next to no aggro involved for her to withold it for as long as she likes.

If the flatmate doesn't know where she lives, then he has to pay a tenant tracing company to find her in order to get the address to serve the court papers.

tbs624

kajstring24 wrote: »

I moved out of my rented house last week into a new place with my boyfriend. We should receive our deposit back soon and as it comes back to my account, it's my responsibility to return the correct share of the deposit to my boyfriend and our housemate.

Returning it to my partner is no problem, however, our housemate was a nightmare for the year we lived in the house and it came to a head at the end of the contract. Me and my boyfriend cleaned every room in the house between us and the housemate did a half-arsed job on his room and cleaned the kitchen work surfaces. Obviously thinking that he had satisfied his share of the cleaning.

I hate to be involved in something to petty because this sort of row happens when you move out of student digs, but I quite simply do not think he deserves his deposit back, because as far as I am concerned he did not meet the terms of the contract. He did not even offer to do a room and simply sat around the house doing nothing while I was slaving away on my hands and knees cleaning. I even blocked his computer from accessing the Internet in an attempt to make him do something but it didn't work. He wasn't forced into doing any cleaning for the simple reason that we shouldn't have to. He is an adult who simply can't assume adult responsibilities and it drives me mad because he thinks he is getting by in life.

Obviously, his excuse of a life is not my concern, but while we still have a deposit to settle he'll be on my back reminding me as if I'm a child. On one hand, he doesn't deserve all of his deposit back, but on the other, do I really want to prolong this whole saga? I'm worried that if I withold any of his deposit, even after offering an explanation he'll go as far as taking legal action, so has anyone got any advice to what I should do?

You are presumably on a joint and several contract and all paid the same deposit amount?

Did you actually discuss the cleaning up with the 3rd tenant or did you just get on and clean in full "martyr" mode?

If the LL reimburses the deposit, just split the deposit return 3 ways and get on with the rest of your life: this sort of petty stuff is unfortunately part and parcel of renting a house with other people.

It's often harder when two of the housemates are a couple and the other is effectively a gooseberry.

kajstring24

Well, thanks for the useful advice guys. Yes, the cleaning was discussed between the 3 of us at several times throughout the tenancy. As stubborn as I am about this, I think the majority are just confirming my gut feeling. I just don't fancy letting him think he can coast through life doing the bare minimum, but who am I to decide what he does with his life.

As for anyone else, if you don't have anything decent to add then why bother, other than to belittle someone? A nightmare or not, you don't have the right to judge me in such a way. I asked for advice and I expected that. Not sly comments.