Room mate took all his stuff and left

spunuk

Hi all
was living with another student on a 9 month contract and he was talking about maybe moving out. He came to the house and has taken all his stuff and left. haven't contacted the landlord yet. he also owes myself and the other tenants money for bills. he has also deleted us on social media sites and wont respond to texts. just looking for advice on what the situation is now. we all signed the lease.

shruikan2553

Seeing as you all signed the lease you all still have to pay whatever rent is on the lease. ie, rent is 300 each between 3 people, 1 person leaves. Rent is now 450 for the 2 people until a new tenant is found.

For bills there isn't much you can do. The LL may cover it from that persons deposit. It depends on the LL.

So you need to split his part of the rent between you until you find a new person and ask the LL to take his part of the bills from the deposit.

spunuk

Can the landlord not go after him for breach of contract, Seems strange that if a person left and broke his contract that we would be the ones paying for him? Hes really screwing us over if your correct. He basically stole from us by not paying us money for bills.

Could you not take him to the small claims court for the rent covering the remaining period of the lease and his portion of the bills to date?

shruikan2553

Legally those who signed the lease are liable for rent. The LL could chase after the person but that requires effort. Likewise with names on the bills. Any arrangements between how things are paid are between everyone in the house. It is a crap situation to be in but there's not much you can do and there is very little anyone else will do for you.

I am assuming the person who left had paid a deposit.
Any money owed by the person will have to be taken out of that but how you would go about it would depend on if you deal with the LL themselves or estate agent.

Grandpa Hassan

spunuk wrote: »

Can the landlord not go after him for breach of contract, Seems strange that if a person left and broke his contract that we would be the ones paying for him? Hes really screwing us over if your correct. He basically stole from us by not paying us money for bills.

That is the nature of your 'joint & several' lease unfortunately. You are all individually liable for the whole amount. So from the LL perspective, it is far easier to get you to pay than chase the guy who legged it. As you say, he is uncontactable.

That is the standard lease. Your best option is to find someone else to take his place, and get the lease changed with the agreement of the LL

spunuk

Thanks for the replies
what's annoying me the most is today I asked him for the money for bills, and he said he would get it this evening. 20 mins later went downstairs and he had cleared up and left. He was also the person who pushed for expensive tv/internet package which I signed up for and is on a contract. Iv rented with this landlord for 3 years so i will have to wait and see what he makes of the situation

murphaph

Do you know the guy personally? If not, I'm afraid you've learned a tough lesson that you don't sign leases with people you don't know! I feel for you by the way, the guy is a tosser and I hope you catch up with him.

spunuk

murphaph wrote: »

Do you know the guy personally? If not, I'm afraid you've learned a tough lesson that you don't sign leases with people you don't know! I feel for you by the way, the guy is a tosser and I hope you catch up with him.

No, only know him a few months. If the worst comes about and we have to move out what happens to the UPC contract. I assume we would have to pay the cancellation fee for that? Also is there anyway for us as the tenants to get money off him? small claims court?

murphaph

Can you find him first?

spunuk

murphaph wrote: »

Can you find him first?

I know a good bit about him and I know his course so id find him if that's what it takes. He cant really change his mobile number so he will have to talk to me at some stage whether on the phone or in person.

shruikan2553

Small claims court is only to do with sales or something I believe. It has been brought up before and someone corrected it.

Colleges often frown upon this sort of thing, gives them a bad name. Wonder if there is someone there you could report him.

Mrs OBumble

spunuk wrote: »

He cant really change his mobile number so he will have to talk to me at some stage whether on the phone or in person.

Good luck with that. Of course he can change his phone number, skip out of college, whatever. Whether or not he does, who knows.

OP, cut your losses and get busy finding a replacement tenant ASAP instead of worrying about guy who disappeared. Yes, you will be losing some cash on bills. That's life, sometimes. Right now, focus on minimising how much you lose on rent too.



PS even renting with people you know beforehand, this kind of thing can happen. They say you don't really know someone until you've lived with them. True, IMHO.

spunuk

i know he wont drop out of college and i know hes not taking it seriously enough to change his number. we will be looking for a new roommate asap, but i dont want this fella to get away with this scot free especially when he snuck out of the house five minutes after telling me hed pay the bills to me. the only thing we can really do is wait to see what the landlord says

Koptain Liverpool

That´s crap. Make sure that you don´t offer to pay the other guys rent when you´re talking to the landlord. Yes you may be liable for it but explain to the landlord that this fella has done a runner and as you are students there is no way you can afford the extra rent. You just don´t have it.

Tell him you´re trying to get someone else asap and hopefully he will let you off the extra rent until then.

As regards the bills it will be hard to get it back from the guy. Publically chase him down for it though and embarass him into paying it

dubscottie

Did you find the accommodation yourself or did the college help? (for example my landlord has a place he rents to students from x college every year)

If you did it through the college get on to the college accommodation officer so they know he has a history of doing a bunk..

Might save someone having to go through the same hassle as you next year..

foggy_lad

Did ye all sign different "contracts" with the landlord/agent? It sounds to me like the landlord was leasing out the rooms to ye individually rather than leasing the whole house to a group. Many will do this as it brings in more money.

eternal

Post his name, course details and description on the college SU facebook page and embarrass the living **** out of him. Scumbag.

braddun

get someone new in,quick

davo10

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

......don´t offer to pay the other guys rent when you´re talking to the landlord. Yes you may be liable for it but explain to the landlord that this fella has done a runner and as you are students there is no way you can afford the extra rent. You just don´t have it.

Unless OP and housemates signed individual contracts, I'm afraid that is not correct. If four people jointly sign a contract and one leaves, the other three become responsible for the payment of the whole monthly rent, they are joint and severely liable. If they do not pay the rent the LL can begin the eviction process and it may be difficult to find new accomadation at a reasonable price at this time of year. As others have said, solution is to not waste a minute trying to find a replacement.

cerastes

spunuk wrote: »

Can the landlord not go after him for breach of contract, Seems strange that if a person left and broke his contract that we would be the ones paying for him? Hes really screwing us over if your correct. He basically stole from us by not paying us money for bills.

Not their responsibility to chase him

spunuk wrote: »

No, only know him a few months. If the worst comes about and we have to move out what happens to the UPC contract. I assume we would have to pay the cancellation fee for that? Also is there anyway for us as the tenants to get money off him? small claims court?

Is it an annual contract, Id be more concerend about getting someone in, shame the guy on social media and put it out there at the same time you're looking for a person for the length of time if someone is looking or knows someone who is. Also advertise

spunuk wrote: »

I know a good bit about him and I know his course so id find him if that's what it takes. He cant really change his mobile number so he will have to talk to me at some stage whether on the phone or in person.

He can change his number, maybe he gave you a disposable one? maybe he will just ditch it?
On another not if all but one left, that one would be responsible for the rent.

Personally, Id try get someone else in quickly for your own sakes, did you pay a deposit jointly or at all or individually? if individually perhaps this person did also, make sure he doesnt try get it returned, inform the landlord, surely that will contribute to the loss? shame the person if such a thing is possible, but at least make it known widely, someone must be looking to rent a room, make sure to inform the landlord, confirm yourself, do you rent rooms or is there a lease to the whole place? even if its not written, a verbal agreement forms a contract too, so if you are renting the whole place it would suggest thats the case.

Id chase the guy up after, when you have time, make it difficult for him later to sting someone else.

Any idea as to why he moved, any hints from them? problems? are the remaining people reasonable cooperative types not playing death metal at 2 am?

Grandpa Hassan

foggy_lad wrote: »

Did ye all sign different "contracts" with the landlord/agent? It sounds to me like the landlord was leasing out the rooms to ye individually rather than leasing the whole house to a group. Many will do this as it brings in more money.

It says in the OP that they signed a joint contract

gaius c

The perils of housesharing. When I first moved to Dublin, we had a weird French girl in the house who would sit in the tv room all evening with curtains drawn and lights off. We used to joke that she was a vampire.

It wasn't so funny when she disappeared and we realised that she was after leaving a phonebill of €300 behind.
Luckily...somebody else in the house had a friend (former housemate) kipping on the couch for a fortnight and he kindly offered to pay it as his contribution to the house while he was staying there. Pretty sound of him.

About a year later, another housemate skipped out leaving his portion of bills unpaid and it took a lot of chasing to get the money out of him. Got lucky that time. Other people would have just ignored the texts/calls.

Housesharing really is the pits.

endacl

Deleted User wrote: »

Could you not take him to the small claims court for the rent covering the remaining period of the lease and his portion of the bills to date?

No. The SCC doesn't deal with that sorta thing. You may be thinking of Judge Judy.

The Spider

You haven't a hope, this kind of thing happens in house shares all the time, and as your students, first time out of home and all that, sometimes people just decide where they're living isn't for them. The landlord won't pursue him he knows he'll get nowhere, I think you guys need to put up an ad and get someone else in asap.

I've done it when I was younger and had other people do it in houses I shared. Par for the course really, especially with people you don't know at least he's moved out I remember years ago a guy I shared with realised he couldn't pay the rent but wanted to stay on anyway because he had nowhere to go, that was a nightmare.

From what I remember on house shares, the lease is almost irrelevant as people move out and are replaced, there's usually a general feeling of not contacting the landlord, and sooner or later all the housemates are replaced bar 1.

Grandpa Hassan

The Spider wrote: »

From what I remember on house shares, the lease is almost irrelevant as people move out and are replaced, there's usually a general feeling of not contacting the landlord, and sooner or later all the housemates are replaced bar 1.

Reminds me of Trigger in Only Fools and Horses.

Trigger, Del, Rodney, Sid and Boycie sitting in Sid's cafe. Trigger just been presented with an award for saving the council money


[FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Trigger And that's what I've done. Maintained the broom for 20 years. This old brooms had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Sid How the hell can it be the same bloody broom then?
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Trigger Theres the picture. What more proof do you need? [/FONT]

anonyanony

Did you rent a room in the place from the LL or did all three of you rent the place together, a lot of student places rent buy the room the other person would not be a concern. The fact you where there 3 years and this random person was new not vetted by you points to you renting a room.

You are stuck with the year of upc as you put it in your name, let it be a lesson don't put bills in your name unless you want the product.

Mrs OBumble

gaius c wrote: »

Housesharing really is the pits.

Not the way I did it: all bills were in my name, the lease was in my name only. housemates all paid towards a weekly bills kitty along with their rent - all paid weekly.

endacl

endacl wrote: »

No. The SCC doesn't deal with that sorta thing. You may be thinking of Judge Judy.

You are right. We need Judge Judy here in Ireland!

listermint

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Not the way I did it: all bills were in my name, the lease was in my name only. housemates all paid towards a weekly bills kitty along with their rent - all paid weekly.

How would that be better than the OPs ? Someone skips out everything is in your name

anonyanony

listermint wrote: »

How would that be better than the OPs ? Someone skips out everything is in your name

She has full control of the place and everything can kick out problem people in a minute and look for a replacement and use the deposit to cover overdue bills. If you know you can cover it all if needs be, it's fine but unrealistic for a student be that financially secure.

I think renting a room rather then an place is best for a student, you cannot get stuck with extra money if they run out and most bills are usually in the LL name so he forces the non payers to pay.