Renting a Student House, Huge Worries

FizzS

Hi, I only joined the site a little while ago, but this issue has been brewing for a while now and i was hoping for some advise or ideas of what I can do...

A friend and I had been looking for a house to rent for the next academic year in Winchester (we left it so late because initially I was going to move into her rented house so I thought I didn't need to look for anywhere, but she had a falling out with her landlady a few months ago and it's not an option anymore, so now the majority of student houses are gone).
My friend found a house through the estate agents called 'Reeds Rains'. I found an extra person from my course to join us as it is a 3 bed house; my friend and I viewed the place and it was all fine.

I was anxious to move back home asap because I was running out of money for food ( ), we paid the agency fee and deposit soon after viewing the place and I thought that was the end of it because they hadn't told me of any other fees.

A day or two later I get a call telling me we all have to pay a guarantor fee of £120 each! While I wasn't surprised about needing a guarantor, I was very irritated about this as they had not told us of this fee before we had paid the agency fee and deposit (in fact I noticed a box in some paperwork I had to fill in was labeled 'guarantor fee', they had left this blank despite filling in the costs for the deposit and admin), therefore if I refused they would have kept my agency fee. I was planning to leave Winchester to go home by then, so I haggled them down to £100 each, paid mine and left for home.

Now the issue is that our 3rd housemate not only cannot pay the guarantor fee, they no longer have a guarantor because their parent was recently made redundant, so they have pulled out.

We are due to sign the contract on the 23rd June (in a week), and we have no 3rd person! I have been looking for a replacement and found someone who seemed positive about it but they haven't replied to my emails since Tuesday 12th so I think they may have lost interest.

If we can't find a 3rd person we can't afford the rent (£900 a month, so £450 each), if we leave they'll keep the fees they took from us and I won't be able to find anywhere else in Winchester because I won't have enough money left, so I won't be able to continue to my 2nd year!

I don't know what's going to happen, I had a bad feeling about this from the start, I knew I should have just demanded my money back and walked away.

I've been kept awake at night for the last month about this, I hope someone can offer some advise?

dawyldthing

i would say your best bet is to move home for the summer with your stuff and then relook when you are due to move back up (I know when I was at uni some didnt start until late September/early October) as often people fail exams then decide not to go back/decide the course is not for them etc. You'll save some money over the months as you won't have rent to pay, may find a cheaper place to stay and it could all work out for the best as theres always a surprising amount of houses and rooms that come up late August

the other thing is does your uni have a rent a room site as I know there used to be a unipol one in Leeds to find fellow house sharers?