Student Joint Tenancy Problems

bristol_pilot

Geenie wrote: »

Wrong. Fortunately my daughter has her head screwed on because she has seen this happen to others. So she made sure that all of her house mates this year were long term trusted friends, motivated to finish their degrees. Plus she knows where they live and what their parents are called! Shocking I know.

I appreciate this isn't the same for everyone though, and the scramble for property and pressure to find house mates is very intense in popular areas, starting about now for properties to rent next October.

It would be easy to make a bad choice if you havent got enough trusted friends to fill a house, and then grasp at any unknowns who come forward who can help secure a wanted property.

The pressure from LA's in student areas is intense, and I know that if it wasn't for us being LL's and knowing what should be done, our daughter would have been taken to the cleaners on deposits and other things in the past.

The 'they' in my post referred to the parents, not to the poster's student daughter or her housemates. No doubt the students know each other!

bristol_pilot

anselld wrote: »

Limited experience, as in ... have you rented as a student at a university where guarantors are the norm, or have you had your offspring at such a university?

As a well-qualified graduate, you will no doubt recognise the first part of that as a circular argument. My offspring are not even of school age yet, never mind university.

The only students I know are the ones living in the same block of flats as me. Direct rental from landlord, no agency, no guarantors (they did pay a deposit though).

Geenie

bristol_pilot wrote: »

The 'they' in my post referred to the parents, not to the poster's student daughter or her housemates. No doubt the students know each other!

What, so all students proposing to share together should make sure their parents are all best friends?!! Your post doesn't make any sense or is feasible.

Geenie

bristol_pilot wrote: »

As a well-qualified graduate, you will no doubt recognise the first part of that as a circular argument. My offspring are not even of school age yet, never mind university.

The only students I know are the ones living in the same block of flats as me. Direct rental from landlord, no agency, no guarantors (they did pay a deposit though).

Try Birmingham and see how far you will get without a parental guarantee for students. A deposit is not "a though" but a given. The deposit is not meant for paying rent, but for damage etc to the property.

bristol_pilot

The fatal combination is 'joint and several liability' + parental guarantees. Seems simple enough to me. Each student is liable for ALL the rent, not just their share. The parents are responsible for all debts of the student. Therefore each of the parents are responsible for the debts of all the students, not just their own sprog. Not suggesting they should make friends, I'm suggesting that unless they have thousands of pounds to throw away that they should not sign guarantees for shared houses with joint and several liability.

bristol_pilot

Geenie wrote: »

Try Birmingham and see how far you will get without a parental guarantee for students. A deposit is not "a though" but a given. The deposit is not meant for paying rent, but for damage etc to the property.

Ha! My brother is student in Birmingham and there is no parental guarantee in place for his shared house. So there!

Geenie

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Ha! My brother is student in Birmingham and there is no parental guarantee in place for his shared house. So there!

Well it must be sh*te! So there!

Geenie

bristol_pilot wrote: »

The fatal combination is 'joint and several liability' + parental guarantees. Seems simple enough to me. Each student is liable for ALL the rent, not just their share. The parents are responsible for all debts of the student. Therefore each of the parents are responsible for the debts of all the students, not just their own sprog. Not suggesting they should make friends, I'm suggesting that unless they have thousands of pounds to throw away that they should not sign guarantees for shared houses with joint and several liability.

So the parents of the student who has gone with the entire deposit details?

maria90uk_2

Hi everyone,

I have no idea if I'm doing this right as I've never used this forum before, so if I am supposed to start a new thread just politely tell me and I'll do so. But as my issue is regarding a joint student tenancy I thought I would try and post it here.

I am a student living in a house with 3 other tenants under a joint tenancy agreement. During August the boiler was not working for about 2 weeks. One of my housemates was living here, I was living here on and off during that time and my other two housemates visited briefly. We told the letting agent of the fault and he told us to try "adjusting the pressure" on the boiler. Low and behold that didn't fix it. He said he would get someone to fix it asap. Following several phone calls and emails chasing them up we said in one email that we would withhold an amount of rent equivalent to the inconvenience they caused us the longer it took them to fix it. We took this measure because it was very frustrating having no hot water or heating (ok we had an electric shower but I think this is irrelevant) and an uncontactable letting agency. So three of us (not four as the other housemate didn't want to be a part of it) withheld £75 worth of rent each. (Our total rent payment as of September 21st was £1196 per tenant, less the £75.)

They contacted us about 10 days after rent was paid asking why we hadn't paid the full amount. We explained to them that we had threatened to withhold rent. They sent us a very poorly written email accusing us of breaking the boiler and threatening to issue us with a CCJ. We told them we were still holding back the money.

We have not heard from them since. As this has worried us and we are unsure whether they have dropped the issue or they are "taking it to court", we went to the Citizens Advice Bureau for help.

They told us that we are not legally entitled to withhold rent, but that we can claim compensation for the broken boiler.

So we have £75 each that we owe them, but they owe us money too?

My housemate wants to offer them the money back and ask for compensation. I think there is no chance of getting money back from them, and personally I do not wish to give them back the money as I think they would not go to court over such a small amount each. (Ok it totals £225 as it is a joint tenancy.) But when they are receiving another £1196 from each of us in January are they really going to bother?

Another thing, in the house contract it says "interest at the rate of four per cent per annum above the base rate will accrue on any rent in arrears until it is paid." We are concerned that they will try to claim this extra money too.

Any advice on this would be hugely appreciated as it is causing arguments between me and my fellow housemates as to what we should do!

Many thanks in advance,

Maria

jayme1

maria90uk: does your uni not have a housing department? that should've been your first point of call after they didnt repair the boiler on the first instance, go to them asap and tell them the situation, they will help you out, your letting agency will crumble pretty fast as they will not want to run the risk of the universities housing department activly discouraging students going with them.