I genuinely don't know if I'm being unreasonable or not. I'll try to keep it short!
I moved to a new city in Sept. I wasn't happy in my first flat. Found the room on gumtree (risky, i know!) and just didn't click with flatmates. I moved flats in Feb. I moved to this flat (although it's a wee bit old fashioned and slightly grotty) because I happened to know one of the guys (james) who lives here - we have known each other from home and both happened to end up living here. There are 3 bedrooms and the other bedroom was taken by a girl neither of us knew (gumtree again)- she'd been there for a couple of months before I moved in.
She decided to leave as she found somewhere cheaper. Fair enough, she tried to find someone to take over her lease (she left 4 months early). She ended up leaving on bad terms as she wouldn't accept that james and i should have a say in who ends up living with us - she was happy to throw anyone into the room so she wouldn't have to pay extra rent. Anyway, i'm rambling. The landlord was very good about agreeing that james and i could find our own flatmate as long as she also continued to contribute to the effort. She left without finding someone in the end, and ended up losing her deposit (one month rent).
This was almost a month ago. Since she left, I've tried everything to find someone. I've put ads on gumtree and on flatmate sites, asked friends of friends, posted on twitter, fb etc. Lots of viewers, no one is biting. I can kind of understand why as it's the smallest bedroom in the flat and the flat isn't THAT nice. We've specified 'no students' in the ad (council tax reasons and also we're both working fulltime, we've done the student life thing already) and to be honest, if I didn't know one of the people already living here I probably wouldn't have taken the flat. So i'm not really surprised it's proving hard to find a professional who wants to move in.
ANYWAY - landlord rang me today to say he is going to ask the letting agency to advertise the room and handle all the viewings etc themselves- that's fine, we want someone to move in soon too (council tax between 3 rather than 2!) but I was a bit taken aback when he said he expected james & i to split the cost of advertising it with him. It's going to cost around £200 and I can't afford to pay around £70. I also don't feel like we should have to. I've genuinely made a big effort to try and get a new flatmate in in the last month and I don't know what else I can do! It's not our fault the other girl broke her lease and left and yes, it's a pain in the ass for the landlord to miss out on rent for one of the bedrooms but again, that's not our fault.)
I said I wasn't really happy to contribute towards the cost of advertising it and he said that since we were all on the same lease, it was partly our responsibility. i just checked my lease and i have (for some unknown reason) a 'holiday agreement' 6 month lease that only names me. the contract is between me and the landlord (but obv handled by the letting agency) so am I right in assuming that I have a contract with the landlord regarding MY ROOM, rather than responsibility for the vacant bedroom as well? I assume James has a similar lease as we all moved in at different times. I honestly don't know! the lease says nothing about what will happen if someone moves out of the flat...
He really does seem like a nice reasonable guy, was v good about understanding the predicament james&i were in when the other flatmate left, so i don't want to phone him ranting about my tenants rights etc!
am i being unreasonable? naive? are we responsible for helping towards the advertising fee?
IABU TO EXPECT YOU TO HAVE READ THIS WHOLE THING...THANKS