Housemate failed to progress to final year. Need advice on accommodation.

Bezopachnye

Hi everyone.

I've just had some bad news that one of my housemates didn't manage to get the mark needed to progress on to the final year of their Masters course. Me and my other housemate are quite bewildered about actions we should take with accommodation.

To elaborate a bit, the three of us (myself and my two housemates) signed a joint tenancy agreement in November to move into a rented house this coming September. My other two housemates were both planning on doing additional Masters years, which relied on getting a certain mark in order to progress to. While one of my housemates has passed on to the fourth year, the other unfortunately didn't and will likely just graduate with a BSc this July.

So I guess what I'm asking is what does this mean for the tenancy agreement? Is this now void? Will we have to find a replacement housemate?

I read somewhere that student finance provides funding for one additional year in case of any unexpected circumstances. If this is true, would the housemate who failed to progress still be able to meet their rent costs?

While I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place, I appreciate any advice that can be given.

silvercar

Morally she entered the rental agreement and needs to keep to her share. That means paying the rent. She could do this by getting a job or going on another course that would attract funding. Other options include claiming housing benefit if she has no savings/other income or living at home and earning to pay the rent even though not living there. The other option is to find someone to take her place, how you negotiate her need to get anyone to take her place and you wanting to live with someone that you get on with one is a grey area.

silvercar

I read somewhere that student finance provides funding for one additional year in case of any unexpected circumstances. If this is true, would the housemate who failed to progress still be able to meet their rent costs?

No, the extra year is for changing courses and studying again, you don't get it of not a student.

agrinnall

It's unlikely that the tenancy agreement will be poorly written enough to be void simply because one tenant hasn't got the money to pay for it - having signed a joint TA the two of you who are staying will be required to pay the full rent between you (although you could sue the other tenant if she won't pay up).

Your options really are:

1) Get a replacement tenant - the LL may well want to vet them and could charge an additional fee (assuming this isn't in Scotland).

2) The failed tenant could stay in the house and pay her share of the rent from working/benefits/savings. Note that if she is no longer a student and is not on certain benefits council tax will become due, although she'll be entitled to the single occupancy discount of 25%.

3) She leaves and you don't get a new tenant in, so you pay extra rent yourselves.

A further option could be to negotiate surrender of the tenancy with the LL and rent somewhere else just for the two of you, but you may have to pay the LL's additional costs even if it is agreed.

Bezopachnye

Morally she entered the rental agreement and needs to keep to her share. That means paying the rent. She could do this by getting a job or going on another course that would attract funding. Other options include claiming housing benefit if she has no savings/other income or living at home and earning to pay the rent even though not living there. The other option is to find someone to take her place, how you negotiate her need to get anyone to take her place and you wanting to live with someone that you get on with one is a grey area.

Sounds like my housemate who didn't progress is in an awkward situation. I don't think he will be studying for another year so it's looking likely that finding a replacement housemate will be the best avenue to pursue. Luckily, it looks like we may already have a potential replacement who wants to view the property tomorrow. He's a friend of my other housemate so in all likelihood we will most likely get along fine.

Bezopachnye

having signed a joint TA the two of you who are staying will be required to pay the full rent between you (although you could sue the other tenant if she won't pay up)

Hopefully it won't come to that, suing the housemate for rent feels like a kick while they're down, though of course rent still has to be paid one way or another. Raising the funding for the rent for the two of us could prove to be an issue, though likely we could ask our families to help out a little.

Your options really are:

1) Get a replacement tenant - the LL may well want to vet them and could charge an additional fee (assuming this isn't in Scotland).

2) The failed tenant could stay in the house and pay her share of the rent from working/benefits/savings. Note that if she is no longer a student and is not on certain benefits council tax will become due, although she'll be entitled to the single occupancy discount of 25%.

3) She leaves and you don't get a new tenant in, so you pay extra rent yourselves.

A further option could be to negotiate surrender of the tenancy with the LL and rent somewhere else just for the two of you, but you may have to pay the LL's additional costs even if it is agreed.

This is really good advice. It seems that most options would potentially result in additional costs being incurred, bar potentially finding a new housemate (except if any additional fees are applied for switching housemate). I'm guessing that surrendering the tenancy would result in the deposit being lost, so this could prove costly as well. It's looking as though finding a new housemate is the best option, since the financial situation of the leaving tenant will likely be tenuous at best.

Rosemary7391

This happened to me and my friends although in second year rather than final year. The guy concerned (more likely his parents!) continued to pay rent and looked for someone to take over his room, although that only amounted to one person coming to look at the place in January... they didn't take the room so he paid for the entire year and didn't live there. If you/they want to find another person, best get your collective skates on as once people settle into the new term it'll be much harder!

Maddybee33

Other options include claiming housing benefit if she has no savings/other income or living at home and earning to pay the rent even though not living there.

I don't think that you can if you live with students.

Bezopachnye

This happened to me and my friends although in second year rather than final year. The guy concerned (more likely his parents!) continued to pay rent and looked for someone to take over his room, although that only amounted to one person coming to look at the place in January... they didn't take the room so he paid for the entire year and didn't live there. If you/they want to find another person, best get your collective skates on as once people settle into the new term it'll be much harder!

I'm glad that worked out in the end for you. Yeah, we're all working through our options now just to see where we stand. I can imagine it does become a lot harder once term starts! luckily we still have a good 3 months until then, so fingers crossed we should have sorted it by then.

I don't think that you can if you live with students.

Really? I don't have experience with benefits or anything like that so I wouldn't know this was the case.

19lottie82

Maddybee33 wrote: »

I don't think that you can if you live with students.

Of course you can. You'd just be responsible for any council tax liability, that's all.