DD’s nightmare flatmate.

[Timble]

Hi all,
do you know if landlords or agents have a responsibility to protect tenants?
do tenants have any rights at all?

my DD is in her third year. Living with three lovely girls and one who they are all terrified of.
she has locked them all out, refusing to let them in (I wasn’t told until the next day and told DD she should have rang the police at the time). She’s rude, threatening. Makes a lot of noise in the middle of the night. She keeps calling the girls racist (there has been no racist comments towards this girl aside from this girl constantly calling them ‘stupid white girls’ or similar. She messages the girls regularly to tell them to stay out of her way or they’ll regret it. To shut up and be quiet or she’ll make them. (No loud noises, they’re all in their third year and studying hard/on placements). All the other girls now want to move out as they can’t face living with her anymore. I just can’t believe we have to pay and even though they’ve reported this girl to the estate agents and they’ve had meetings nothing has changed. They believe this girl has been kicked out of uni and hasn’t paid rent but they don’t have proof.

my DD is 20 and she manages most issues herself/with the other flatmates but currently she’s had enough and needs help.
I guess it’s not really an AIBU but can we refuse to pay last terms rent or we pay and chalk this up to a horrendous experience? No idea where dd will live if she moves out!!

thank you xx

@Timble Your poor DD and her flatmates. This could be femcel behaviour and she is jealous of the other roommates. Perhaps she sees them getting more attention from boys at uni. Or she has severe mental health problems.

I don’t think the jealousy thing could be true as she was off with them before they even met. Maybe it’s mental health, maybe she was kicked out of her previous flat and is annoyed to have to live with people she didn’t want to. The others wouldn’t mind if she didn’t want to be friends with them. They obviously hoped she would as it makes for a happier living space but they wouldn’t have held it against her if she just decided to keep to herself. I’ve barely slept trying to sort this in my head!

That’s the thing she didn’t say anything bad about them just remarks like they’re stupid white girls or they’re annoying, things like that. I’m sure if the dad thought his daughter was being bullied by 4 flatmates there would have been meetings about it.

I would definitely speak to the university and see if they have some space in halls. My university got involved when there was a situation between someone I lived with and someone he lived with previously. They acted really fairly and supported both. Especially since there is likely some spaces in halls due to dropouts etc. Good luck!

So they were obviously gutted when one friend said she could no longer move in, that’s natural as they knew it would be difficult to find someone else at that late stage. When the estate agents found this girl they asked to swap numbers and meet up as they’d be living with her for a year. This girl is from London and has very good English. This is not a cultural differences situation. If she felt intimidated by the girls then she could have decided not to move in. We also live in London, probably 70% of my dds mates are from various races and religions, she could not care less, she just wanted a nice final year with nice housemates. When she originally told me this new person wasn’t interested in being friends she was ok about it, said they’d try and include her but let her get settled in. She moved in late as she hadn’t paid her rent, she text my Dd to see if her room had a lock on it as she planned to move in without paying (obv she wouldn’t have a front door key so she couldn’t really).
there was no interrogation it was ‘hi my name is x would you lie to meet up for a meal drink to get to know each other. This is pretty normal I’d say. When my daughter first went to uni the uni encourages the groups to join the course and flat WhatsApp groups to get to know flatmates.

I feel you also make it sound like they just have different personalities. That’s not really the case here, my dd is excelling at uni and getting amazing feedback and assessments in her placements. If she couldn’t deal with someone slightly different she’d be failing! She doesn’t months working in a rehab centre being sworn at, called names etc she was professional, calm and patient. She may be young but she’s not wet behind the ears.

I think there's a weird lack of sympathy from some posters on this thread!

It's positive they have individual contracts.

I think all dd and her housemates can do is:

Keep on and on at the EA. Daily.
Save threatening messages and report them to the police
Get suppprt from the university

I don't think you can hold back her rent.

I haven’t read the whole thread, but it sounds like the 4 girls have rented this house through a letting agent and each has a separate contract.

I don’t know why people are banging on about the LL, he/she has let the property through the agent to keep everything at arm’s length, your contract is with the agent. Even if you contacted the LL, they will want you to liaise with the agent, who they pay a lot of money to.

I would suggest all 3 girls tell the agent they are not paying any more rent until this dreadful girl is removed from the property, at which point they will fully pay their withheld rent. That way, they are saying “We will pay, but not till she’s gone.” The agent does have a duty of care in this case, as they foisted the 4th girl on the group, purely to fill a room and make money.

Whilst I never normally suggest parents doing things that adult children should do for themselves - in this case, you are presumably your daughter’s guarantor, so I think it’s reasonable for you and the other parents to intervene and badger the agent. It will be more difficult for them to fob you off than a bunch of young students.

I would badger the agent every day and the other parents should do the same. Stress that they have a duty of care, and that this girl is threatening their safety.

Have any of you parents actually been to the house to observe what’s going on? Or could you go and stay locally for a few days so that you can go round to the house and make your presence felt?

In the meantime, the girls must call the police EVERY time she does anything threatening or dangerous, like locking them
out.

Is it possible to find a 3 bed short let for the girls to get them through the next couple of months? If so, I would just get them moved and to hell with the contract on the shared house. Put it in writing to the agent that THEY have broken the contract by introducing a stranger to the property and by failing to give a duty of care. Threaten to sue them for breach of contract.

Lettings agents are the scum of the earth and the ones who deal with student accommodation are the worst. They know there will be an annual turnover, always more demand than supply, and they treat students with contempt.

To be pragmatic, unis will be breaking up for Easter soon and most students returning home for a month.

From Easter onwards in final year, there won't be many lectures/seminars at all apart from certain courses as most students will be working on dissertations and preparing for finals in May.

Is it possible your daughter could just return home at the end of term and not return to uni apart from to sit her final exams @Timble ?

If she has quit / left uni then she is liable for the Council Tax.

That might be a lever to get her out, a 'You leave or we inform the council'.

Wrong. It’s a letting agent and they have forced the tenants who had already signed a contract to accept a person found by the agent. They absolutely do have a duty of care.

If this girl did something very serious, God forbid, the agent would be in a lot of trouble for not intervening despite months of complaints about her threatening behaviour.

Messages like “watch your back” are clearly threatening. If there are other threatening messages, you should make a police report. It is likely the police will go round and speak to the culprit, and at least it is logged, should the others need to report any other behaviours.

I haven't read the whole thread but I saw that it looks like they have individual contracts with the landlord? Therefore it is in fact the landlord's responsibility despite what the others said. If it is a HMO contract instead of a group contract then they can bring this up with the landlord as the situation is making them feel unsafe within their own home and this needs to be remedied or they'll serve notice.

I'd recommend looking at Shelters website for advice or calling them.

The best advice here, is to phone the police as she has made threats, and you have proof
She also has mental health issues, so find out who is appropriate to deal with this.
The landlords might call the parent if there is a mental health issue, otherwise they won’t care.

Havent RTFT but saw some good suggestions.

Id spend today contacting as many people as possible - Shelter, the uni and a lawyer might be a good start.

The girls could also collect texts and incidents to show a pattern of harassment and go to the police… it might mean more clout for the landlord to get her out. But they need to be told that it isn’t just a personality clash, it’s a threatening individual!

I think the fact that they don’t have a joint tenancy works in your favour, as there is then a responsibility on the landlord to ensure all participants are behaving in a civil manor. Even with guarantors it’s still admin work for them and guarantors can refuse to pay.

Contact the University and see if they have a student conduct officer, they may have different titles and who knows if this girl is still registered but try that. Also get your DD to tell her personal tutor that she is under a lot of stress.

A few posters do seem to try and be making it a racist thing just like this girl. People that are not white can have racist views. I’m mixed race and sort of flit about being accepted by most as East Asians are seen as non threatening, have heard various opinions on race over the years from various people.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned but your daughter needs to contact student support to have a record of this. Not because they'll be able to help with the living situation but because of the impact on your daughter.

It is better to speak to them before this causes any issue with study. If they are aware of a difficult living situation and something escalated like she kicks them all out the night before important exams, there is a record of the difficulties faced etc.

Your daughter needs to let the uni know this is having a negative impact on her.

If it gets to the point they cannot live with her then she'll also be in the system in terms of priority for short term uni accommodation etc.

Getting it documented is important.

I haven't read the whole thread but a skim read shows that NO ONE seems to understand what the agents/landlords are (or more precisely are not) able to do in situations like this.

This isn't student halls, which I'm sure have different powers, this is an Assured Shorthold Tenancy - all with separate contracts on a room by room basis. The only way the agents/landlords could help would be to evict her. I've just had to do this for a trouble-maker in a similar HMO. It took nine months to get a possession order. If I'd then had to wait for bailiffs that would be another three months. One year! And this was using the Section 21 accelerated possession procedure. They're all leaving in June anyway. The landlord/agents can legally do absolutely nothing to help in this case!

And, as an aside, this is why I will not longer be a landlord for houseshares as, when the Renters Reform bill comes in, and Section 21 will no longer be available, there will be no recourse at all in situations like this. Unless antisocial behaviour can be proved - which is likely to be a very high bar and would need a police record (and what she has done doesn't seem likely to reach that bar), then difficult people like this will be able to stay in shared houses forever, effectively chasing everyone else out, and the landlord will not be legally able to do anything about it.

Your DD needs to get this logged with the police (the university will have a campus officer who she can talk to in a neutral setting). PM is disabled at the moment but it may be that the housemate has form.

I've just posted above about how long it would take for the landlord to get her out. The quickest route would be Section 21 "no fault". With this procedure the landlord would need to give two months notice, then wait a further two weeks before applying to the court. The court will then take around four months to issue a possession order. Then a further two weeks needs to elapse before the landlord can apply for bailiffs - and the wait for bailiffs is approximately another three months. So that's around one year! As they're all leaving in June - it's pointless.

If the landlord were to try Section 8 on the basis of antisocial behaviour - while the notice period is shorter it would involve a court case - and the backlog for court cases is well over six months - more like a year in some places - and there would be a very high bar to prove antisocial behaviour. And again, they're all leaving in June - so it's pointless.

Can’t read all the replies so apologies if this has been suggested but if your DD does end up moving out/spending the majority of her time elsewhere get a well disguised nanny cam put in her room so that she’s not liable if the other girl goes in there and trashes it.

The only power the landlord has would be to evict - and as I've posted above - that takes around a year - nine months with the wind behind you ...

And they're leaving in June.

Also it would seem from the ops later posts that they signed a joint tenancy. The LL would need to evict none or all of them.

"her reply: are you all white?
dd: Yes"

I'm surprised almost no one has picked this up yet. The mention of race was also bought up in a later OP comment.

I do not think this girl has MH issues. I suspect she's just racist and a bully. I suspect she's black or coloured and believes in identity politics. On that scale she's an oppressed minority and all white people are racist. In this ideology she can't be racist because she's not white.

It's bs of course, but it's pretty a widespread belief currently in our society.

IMO she might just want the house to herself and might just enjoy bullying the other 4 girls. If she could bully them out of their home then she's won some kind of balancing the race scale. The OP comment about her telling her father on the phone about her behaviour and laughing at it, possibly she gets her racist ideas from her family.

The answer OP is a legal one. If this fifth girls name is not on the contracts signed by everyone, then that is your legal route to get her out. But in practice that might take weeks, and the end of the tenancy would probably come sooner.

Practically the other 4 girls will have to stick together for safety in the house, or move out and pay double rent there and elsewhere.

In the meantime, for a legal record, a visit to police to share her threatening text messages and lay a complaint about that behaviour is in order.

Ah! Well in that case there is nothing at all the agent or landlord could do.