students accomodation and water bill

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

agrinnall wrote: »

monsieur wrote:

Turnip, your communication skills would be much improved if you learned how to be concise.

That's made my day :beer:

Blimey - doesn't take much, does it? I bet you make a cheap date

bouncydog1

Your daughter and you presumably as guarantor should have read the contract for the accommodation before signing. DD's contract is very clear on utilities and responsibility.

if you cannot interpret the language of the contract yourself then you need to contact either. The student union who may help or citizens advice. However it seems that the bill was set up in your daughter's name so she will be liable.

bewildered123

I would second the advice to contact the student union on her campus for advice - many will have welfare advisors. However, I suspect the advice will be that she is liable, as the wording in rental contracts on utilities when they are the tenants' responsibility, tends to be that of joint and several liability, meaning that unfortunately if your daughter is the only name on the bill that they've traced, she can be held wholly liable for the bill. As an eventual CCJ against her, is going to be a problem for renting accommodation through agencies in the future (and elsewhere) the smartest thing (even if unfair) might be to pay, and pursue the other residents through the small claims process.

west_is_best

OMG... I really didn't ask for arguments??

Turnupforthebooks... thank you.. flip in heck, I wish to God I never posted on here, all I wanted was advice to see if someone else knew a way out of it...

To begin with, the contract stated the student were liable for all utilities bills. Which was all above board. I did read the contract before signing. Im not completely stupid..

All the other utilities had all 5 occupiers names on the bills, apart from the Water. The landlord has apologised for the mistake as HE decided on who supplied what, and HE was the one that gave the 3rd party name's (occupiers) to the utilities companies.
My daughter went to see the Students union today and they advised the CAB. She phoned them as well today, only to be told to beg grovel and crawl to the other 2 for money!!!!
as it stands it looks like I will pay their share myself, rather than see my daughter ending up with a black mark behind her name..

Cycrow

the landlord didn't choose which water company the house had, you don't get to choose that.

when renting, its upto the tenants to connect the utilities companies to sort it out

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Yes, I think many could learn from this thread that flat or house-sharing is not to be undertaken lightly, especially when some of your flat or housemates ideas of money-saving may be to do a bunk and leave you holding the baby, and even prior to that, possibly holding a tainted Credit Reference/History address without your knowledge due to their previous possibly nefarious credit histories!

Let us remember that Experian, Equifax and CallCredit are not the only Credit Reference databases that affect us daily. Many lenders keep their own. You might be surprised what "markers" they might hold against your name. Next time you are sat in front of a bank staffer, try asking what it says on the screens they don't show you! And even if they do show you, ask what the innocuous looking codes might mean!

It is still quite feasible I believe to get turned down at the first hurdle for new credit (maybe something like an increase in your student account overdraft up to the maximum 'up to' figure you have seen advertised by your bank), just because the bank has a clutch of bad history linked to your address.

You may be able to get your application pushed through 'on appeal' but you might well ask why should you need to jump through hoops to get what you might deserve as an individual, purely because you find you are part of an almost random group through no conscious fault of your own ?

So ... be careful out there !