Joint tenancy- housemate not been paying rent

MoradoJess

Hey, looking for some advice please.

In July of last year I entered into a joint tenancy with 4 other people. It's a year long tenancy and we'll all be moving out at the end of it. Since the beginning of the year one of my housemates has had money problems and consistently not paid the rent. Obviously she's now built up massive rent arrears (approx £1500) and is still failing to cover about half of the rent each month.

The letting agency has told us that they are unlikely to follow the rest of us up for additional money to cover her rent arrears however unless things change dramatically in the next few months they will be keeping the deposit to cover it. The deposit was £450 each so it's looking likely that all of us will end up paying the vast majority of her arrears.

So, onto my main question. When we all moved in the person that hasn't been paying only paid £100 of her deposit for the house and still got given the keys. This was in July and she didn't pay any money at all to the letting agency again until October (this being the point when the letting agency contacted the rest of us, until then we weren't aware of the situation). Do we have any legal ground to stand on seeing as they let her have keys/sign the contract without having paid the deposit.

I realise probably not but we're at the stage now of desperately clutching at straws. The housemate in question is currently looking at ways to pay back the money before we move out but to be honest I can't see it happening and the rest of us are all considering worst case scenarios. It's a real kick in the teeth to have paid on time every month and done everything by the book only to end up covering someone else's rent.

pyueck

No you are all jointly liable for the rent. The landlord doesn't sound like they are letting you off the missed rent as they will take it out your deposit at the end.

Can you find somebody else to move into the non paying tenants room, and her agree to move out? This will at least stop the arrears getting more and more.

G_M

As pyueck says above.

Best solution is to persuade her to leave and get LL's agreement to a replacement.

But you are each liable for the full property rent - you are not just liable for your 'share'.

Likewise with the deposit. The deposit is for the whole property, not sub-divided into shares.

Viberduo

This is why its always better to get contracts per room rather than by house only flaw that way is normally thats far more expensive

Pixie5740

As others have suggested, try and limit your exposure by getting her and the LL to agree to reassigning the tenancy because you all have joint and several liability for the whole rent.

You could take her to small claims court over her share of the rent (I think) but if she's having money problems you might have problems enforcing the judgement. Still nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Are any of the utilities in her name and if so has she been paying them?

pmlindyloo

The other side of the coin is to find out why she is having money troubles and try to help.

She may need help with budgeting/debt/benefits. Suggests she goes to CAB and gets some help.

This may mean that she will be able to pay off some of her arrears.

mchale

Viberduo wrote: »

This is why its always better to get contracts per room rather than by house only flaw that way is normally thats far more expensive

It would be a foolish LL who would accept individual contracts, as if say the was damage to the communal areas who would be held responsible.

Guest101

mchale wrote: »

It would be a foolish LL who would accept individual contracts, as if say the was damage to the communal areas who would be held responsible.

It's actually very common and the risk is countered by the extra rent.

For example where i rented, for £380 pm, inc bills, there was 3 rooms, so in total £1140 pm, if renting the whole house, it would likely only be £595- 650 pm, with a £500 overpayment (even taking into account £200 for bills) there is a £300 excess.

HouseBuyer77

This was in July and she didn't pay any money at all to the letting agency again until October (this being the point when the letting agency contacted the rest of us, until then we weren't aware of the situation).

I'm no expert but doesn't the agent/LL have a responsibility to mitigate their losses? If they had agreed you would all pay seperately and you were all doing so (minus one housemate) and believed in good faith the other person was doing so then by failing to inform you of the arrears for 3-4 months are they actually entitled to claim it off you? The only way you could have known about it otherwise would be for you to call them and check everything was paid every month which is potentially unreasonable.

Of course past October you were aware of the arrears so anything beyond that you would be responsible for.

Pixie5740

HouseBuyer77 wrote: »

I'm no expert but doesn't the agent/LL have a responsibility to mitigate their losses? If they had agreed you would all pay seperately and you were all doing so (minus one housemate) and believed in good faith the other person was doing so then by failing to inform you of the arrears for 3-4 months are they actually entitled to claim it off you? The only way you could have known about it otherwise would be for you to call them and check everything was paid every month which is potentially unreasonable.

Of course past October you were aware of the arrears so anything beyond that you would be responsible for.

The OP and his/her housemates have a joint tenancy, therefore they each have joint and several liability for the whole rent. The LL can mitigate losses by chasing anyone, or all, of the joint tenants for the arrears.

HouseBuyer77

The OP and his/her housemates have a joint tenancy, therefore they each have joint and several liability for the whole rent. The LL can mitigate losses by chasing anyone, or all, of the joint tenants for the arrears.

Indeed but why didn't they start chasing as soon as the arrears became apparent rather than leaving it for a couple of months? Surely part of mitigating losses is taking mitigating action as soon as you could reasonably have become aware of those losses. Expecting the LL/agent to check rent monies have appeared as expected every month doesn't seem unreasonable, so if they didn't check any incoming money for whole quarter you might argue part of the losses were due to their negligance?

If they'd been checking as you would reasonably expect them to do the tenants would have been notified sooner and the (smaller) arrears may have been quicker to sort out.