How do you get out of your shared house lease?

mhoc

My daughter is first year uni and she is in a shared rented house with 6 others. Her lease started in Setember 2006 and will finish September 15th 2007. We have paid her rent for her each month since September and her bond and since December we have also paid her house bills because she ran out of money.

Her boyfriend also lives in a rented place and his lease runs out this month so they thought that they would get a rented flat between them because the two rents they now pay would cover the rent on their own flat.

I have been asking my daughter to sort this out, her current lease with her current landlord since January but she hasnt. I think that this is the first week she has even bothered to see her landlord. Current landdord says lease runs until september.

She seems to think that all she has to do is walk out of her shared room, tale her things and dont bother to pay her rent and bills and that will be the end of her current lease.

She now wants Dad to sign the lease on the new flat but we are saying no until we have a letter from her current landlord saying the lease is finished. Obviously dad is not having his name on two leases and having to pay rent and bills on two places. We dont want phone calls from the landlord, solicitors letters and baliffs and our own credit rating ruined by this either.

I have suggested to her is it possible to get someone for her room in the shared house but she says uni is plastered with notices from people looking for an extra person to rent one room in a house so that would be impossible. But her boyfriend is going to have to move into this flat now on his own and he is going to have to get someone to rent his spare room to help him pay the rent and bills.

Has anyone one else been in this situation?

We dont know anything about the law and leaseholds, neither of us have ever been in rented places but I dont think that there is a way of getting out of the lease.

M

Blacksheep1979

She is liable for breech of contract - but the Landlord must do everything to mitigate his losses. Thing is, if he can't find another tennant (which is very possible) then he can take you guys to the small claims court (and if your husband signed the contract as well or guarantour form) then you will also be liable. You won't win in court and will end up paying for two leases plus expenses.

kittiwoz

The specific legal position will depend on the type of contract she has but presuming she has an assured shorthold tenancy agreement which was signed with the other tenants in her house which is what it sounds like form your post and which is normally the case then your daughter is liable for the rent for the agreed period of the tenancy, i.e. until September and there is no legal get-out.

In this case all the tenants are jointly and severally responsible for the full amount of the rent so if your daughter leaves and stops paying the landlord will probably expect the remaining tenants to make up the shortfall. They will than have to take your daughter to court to force her to pay the money she owes.

However, you imply that her father's name is on the lease, which is unusual. I'm guessing from this that you mean he acted as a guarantor for her. If so the landlord may pursue him for the rent shortfall rather than the remaining tenants since he has agreed to liable if she defaults.

Unless she can find someone else to take on the room and take over responsibility for the rent she is stuck with it. Possibilities for doing this are to inform the accommodation office (particularly if the room was let through a university approved lettings scheme), to ask around and get friend to put the word out and to post notices. I know round here people come and go and you do often see room to let notices but equally there are always people looking to let a room. If you tell us which uni she is at some people who are there might know specific places to try advertise the room that are useful in that area.

Edit: Blacksheep1979 is right re. the LL having to try to find another tenant but he can claim rent from your daughter until he finds one. Also if it is left to the landlord the other tenants will have no say in who moves in (unless they want to cover the rent shortfall) so I doubt this would leave them very happy with your daughter.

shaz77_2

It generally isnt worth the landlords time pursuing it. A friend of mine broke his contract with his landlord, he received a few threatening letters to his home as did his guarantor but they died away very soon, that was over 4 years ago.

BigBouncyBall

May be the case with you shaz but you cant say all landlords will be so easy going. Theres not much to do i'm afraid, shes only in the first year, won't there be plenty of time for living with BF (another 2/3 years) later. Just stick it out, its only another 3 months if shes not going to be there over the summer

mhoc

Yes, she has to stick it out, she has no choice. Still trying to get this through to her.

Boyfriend is 5 years plus older and not at uni, working full time, part of the time he works at the hospital and part at a private place - health care professional so not on much money.

As you say far too soon for moving in with anyone but whatever we ask her to do she does the opposite. They have only known each other since about two weeks before Christmas and I dont think it is the most solid of relationships.

This has all come about because boyfriends lease was coming to an end this month. He has a shared house I think with two others - I dont think they are lodgers and she spends a lot of time there. So the housing problem is his, not hers. I think though it is my daughter who was the lead player in this particualr game of setting up home together.

No my daughters landlord is not a walk over and as the other person says it would be very easy now for him to use the small claims court for him to get the money and we would still end up paying two lots of rent plus bills plus expenses etc plus we would have our finacial records ruined .

I dont think the landlord could get anyone else to take my daughters room for the next six months. It is the biggest room and very close to uni but the house is a disgusting mess, lounge full of fag ends, no-where to sit, kitchen unhygienic, the one loo has never had loo paper and has not been cleaned since last September so you can tell what the others are like.

I think my daughter is too lazy to try and get anyone to take her room so she is stuck there until September.

She cant come home in the summer, firstly because of the boyfriend who works nearby. Secondly she has a casual pub job and she is also trying to get a call centre job so between work, the boyfriend and uni she does not have any free days to come home. (and yes that will bring her over the 16 hours the uni says its the max she is supposed to work)

(Also she has not technically lived at home since she was 18. Her Nana became ill so she went to live with her, next to college and after she died she looked after the house until she went to uni so she has only slept at home a few times in the last year so really she does not live here.)

I am just wondering wether I ought to ring the letting agency in the morning. I know they probally cant speak to me because of the data protection act but I can tell them why we are not signing anything and also not to accept anything she might also sign espcailly her specially the bouncing cheque

m

dougie24

Hi, myself and a couple of friends were in a similar situation with a landlord when we were students, we found the best free, impartial and legal advice was from the citizens advice bureau, they checked out the legal side of things and also offered to act as mediator between landlord and us tenants to reslove the problem. We hadn't actually moved in but needed to withdraw from the tenancy as it was joint between 7 people and 3 so called friends dropped out so this would have meant the rest of us covering the cost. Landlord had to do all in thier power as did we to get other people in, could have gone through small claims to still make us pay the difference but never came to that ...touch wood and everything.

Not sure where your daughter is studying but to make the best money over summer hols at uni, she should try temping through a recruitment agency, Hays Personnel were local to me, but usually involves basic admin tasks such as reception or data input and can usually earn £6.50 plus an hour?!

Good luck with your quest!

mhoc

Citizens advice bureau sounds possible. Mind you she is so lazy I dont think she would bother. Lost count of the number of times I have told her to go to student welfare to get this sorted but she does the opposite of what we ask her.

Where she is lives is a small city and there are call centres based in offices who act for various banks, incoming calls no call calling she has been told. (Mind you I am sceptical about this judging on the number of times I have rung to make an enqury at ours and then at the end of the conversation been asked if there was anything else that they could do for me and then had insurance deals offered me!)

They get a basic £4 odd an hour plus a monthly bonus after four weeks and then another huge bonus after 12 weeks. That tells me that few of them make it past four weeks. The shifts are short though just two or three hours at peak time which also tells me that thye will be set target number of calls to answer per hour and be sacked if they dont do it. very cynical I am.

But she has to find work because her two pub shifts wont keep her in money over the summer. Her next loan payment is due end of April so she will be broke again by mid May with 16 weeks of no money.

I have downloaded the living together agreement thing and printed it off and sent it to her, very indepth but I dont think she has read it or discussed it with BF or how they are going to split the bills. I suspect though she will be expected to pay half in this new flat (that she will not be living in)

Perhaps I am too out of touch but when they go out he pays for one round and she pays for the next even though he is working and she is a student living on her student loan/overdraft and pub money. Sounds harsh to me but perhaps this is how people do things now.

m

ames123_2

Just out of interest do you pay all her rent and bills? What does she spend her student loan on?
I think the only way to get out of the contract is to find someone else to take the room.
I would be a bit worried, as i'm sure you are, about her wanting to get a flat with her bf that she has not known very long.
Her house sounds a bit like ours. Hardly anyone here bothers to clean the bathroom so it isn't that nice.
Difficult situation if your daughter isn't really listening to you! Don't know what else to suggest really. Can her boyfriend afford to rent the flat by himself until September?
Amy xxx

melancholly

well, as long as you don't sign the lease, she can't do anything. if that doesn't give her enough of an incentive then nothing will!

if she's that 'headstrong' just leave her to it - she can't get the new lease without your signature so it's up to her to resolve the situation on her other house. if you give in or do it all for her, sounds like something similar will come up and she'll expect bailing out again. i'd step away from it and tell her it's entirely in her hands since you can't organise this sort of thing from a distance (i'm all for tough love!) - i would avoid ringing the letting agent completely as it's not just her that's looking for the lease - you don't want to end up being responsible for the (very recent!) boyfriend too!

Oldernotwiser

It may seem hard but if she wants to act like an adult by living with someone then she needs to act like an adult in other ways. One of the main points of going to university is to achieve independence; the more you keep bailing her out and sorting out her problems, the more she'll expect you to do. Surely if you're paying the rent then it's your decision where she lives.
As far as paying for her own round goes, if she has her student loan and part time earnings she probably has well over a £100 per week surplus income; it sounds as if she can well afford it!