Housemate may not have paid rent.

LegacyUser

Going unregged for this in case anyone knows the ins and outs etc...

Last month I gave my house €400 for rent which she was supposed to pay. Yesterday we get a call from the Landlady saying that she never got the money. The housemate said she paid it in the building society but the lady behind the counter just gave her a slip of money (which she threw out). So - no evidence of it being paid.

The month before that I see by the records that she didn't pay the rent until a few days after it was due and I had given her the moeny. Looking back I see that this coincided with her being paid i.e. she waited until she was paid herself before paying the rent.

Now, it's her word against everyone elses really. What can be done? I'm sure the building society won't look back on cameras from the date to see if her story is true. She's claiming it was paid, and getting quite upset about it.

Any help is much appreciated.

Beruthiel

Whattodo2006 wrote:

She's claiming it was paid.

then the onus is on her to prove that,
offer to go back to the bank with her and stand there while she asks for proof... if she doesn't want to do that, then she's not telling the truth.
lesson learned for you.

Dreamer 7

I'd explain the situation to your landlady and agree with her to pay your rent direct to her from now on. r housemate should be the one worrying about this situation, you have paid your rent so it is up to her to explain herself

As she has delayed in paying before i would be wary or trusting her with any money at all.
Wether or not she can prove it through the bank records is not your problem you know you paid, she knows you paid so she is in the wrong here.:p

the Guru

Banks have records you know , ask her to get reprint , and in future pay your rent into your landlords acc, online banking is a wonderful tool , USE IT

groundedplane

I had the same problem when I was sharing a house in Walkinstown years ago. Three of us lived in a shared house and we all had our responsabilities with rent, electricty, gas ect. We would give our share of the rent to the girl we shared the house with. She was a long time freind, so not trusting her was never an issue. Any way, we get a call one day from the landlord saying the rent was not paid. We spoke to the girl and said what's the story?

It turned out that she did not pay it and did not pay for a couple of months. I was pISSed I can tell you. I spoke with the landlord and told him that I/we paid but she failed to pass the money onto you. I dont know what happened, but they sorted it out between them selves.

You can go to the bank and get a record of the transaction of when the rent was put into the bank. Its a simple procudure.

chuckles30

Pay the rent to the landlord directly in the future. The onus is on your housemate to prove she did pay it. Seen as she doesn't have proof - it sounds like the money is spent tbh. Did you give her cash or a cheque? I got caught before, but it was the cable money in my case, so thankfully it didn't involve the landlord. Since then I pay rent directly to the landlord or where bills are concerned, I insist on seeing receipts. Receipts for such large amounts of money (and especially when you are paying money for others too) should not be discarded so soon.

Oriel

As said, the banks will be able to go through all the records for that day. If there is nothing in the records for €400 cash lodgement for that day, then she's lying. They have records, so use them. My experience of working in a bank tells me, that it could be an honest mistake of somebody keying in the wrong account number. Instead of the money going into the correct account, it just sits "in limbo" in a general ledger account until somebody complains about it. You'd be surprised how much money stays in thos account, unclaimed.

Dave!

Yeah, just head down to the Building Soc and ask them to check the records.

Sleepy

Sinecura's right. I've worked in a bank branch as well and this kind of thing happens all the time. If your flatmate goes into the branch she lodged the money with, they should have a record of the transaction.

Boston

You have to ask yourself, Why woudl the land lord lie, and why would the house mate lie. The house mate has a reason.

The_B_Man

is it possible she put in the wrong digits and deposited the money into the wrong account?

Kolodny

Why would she 'throw out' the receipt? If she has paid the rent she can get another receipt at the bank to prove exactly when it was paid. Make a big enough song and dance about it and she'll either come up with the proof or crack under the pressure and admit she's lied (I caught an ex-housemate out this way). Insist on the bank receipts going into your rent book or somewhere everyone can see them at the end of each rent day. It's not too much to ask considering the rent's been messed up for 2 months in a row. Maybe you should think about taking over the collection and payment of rent if she can't be trusted to pay it on time?

[Jackass]

If she was given the recepit then it's on the record of the landlords a/c (or whatever a/c it was supposed to be paid to)

To prove it, ask your landlord (or named person on a/c) to present you with a bank statement or weekly ledger (landlord/account holer) can black out the balance if he/she's private or whatever...if it aint on the ledger it wasn't paid.

VERY unlikely it's a banking error. If she was given a receipt for a cash lodgement then the transfer is instant i.e. the money is in the account and it dosen't move.

For my money, i'd say she never paid it and it's very easy to check.

(If your landlord is being honest then she'll have no problem showing bank statement...just be sure it's the correct account number on the statement, not just the name )

[Jackass]

Also, you should keep your reciepts for proof of payment on rent allowance. And if you're not claiming it (which it appears you're not if you don't keep the reciepts) then do.

[edit] Another thing i forgot to say..it's virtually impossible to enter the "wrong" account number...sort codes are differnt for every branch, no branch has more than a few thousands of a/c's, yet there is 8 didgits in the account code...i'm probably way out here, but that means there are literally millions of different combinations of a/c's that can be held under any one sort code...so you cant have 1 a/c of: 12345-12344444 and accidently key in 12345-12344445, they're coded so that it's practically impossible to have any 2 a/c's with a 1 or 2 didgit difference...that's the point of sort codes...so no, massively unlikely a wrong a/c code was enterd. A digit or 2 out and the transaction would be rejected, invalid account.