A --RANT-- plea to all parents of student house-sharers

[Twitterqueen]

Please ensure your sons and daughters pay their flipping bills! My poor DC volunteered to be lead tenant for a house of 8 - and NO-ONE is paying their bills. Which means DC is having to subsidise everyone else. And DC cannot afford it!

It's rude, it's unfair and it's causing a lot of unnecessary stress and hardship. DC has taken on all the utility org - water, electric, gag, ISP, landlord negotiations etc - for no reward. At all. Except abuse and "oh yea, I don't have the money right now." NEITHER DOES DC. PAY WHAT YOU OWE - NOW.

A parent is certainly morally obliged and it's outlined that they are expected to help but I don't think there's anything legal in place to ensure it

Sadly, I come across cases every year in my personal tutee group of students with parents who are unwilling to support them & obviously don't feel a moral obligation. There've been a couple of cases where I've thought that some people shouldn't be allowed to have children, as I see these poor (in so many ways) young people really pushed to deal with it all.

If you’re a dependent student, your local authority will take into account the income of your parents or adoptive parents on top of your own income

Yes but there's no law which forces your parents to contribute to the level that the LEA calculates they will. I see a couple of cases each year where parents contribute nothing. And that's just in one department in one university ...

I can't imagine ever just casting them loose.

We like our time on our own now the're all in their 20s, but are pleased to discuss problems should they choose to share them and help if we can.
Yes, sometimes financially.
Maybe it's relevant that they don't ask or assume, we offer, and they are appreciative.

Sorry OP, a bit of a hijack.

I have no advice on your situation as none of my 3 went to university but you've had lots of good ideas here.

Your DC sounds a bit naive and optimistic; in a way I think that's as it should be. Ffs, they've only just left home!

You don't sound over involved at all, hope it gets sorted without too much hassle or unpleasantness.

Yy to changing wifi p/w immediately. They only get new p/w when they pay outstanding bills in full.

And then get final bills for all utilities and they can take on one each. It may result in them having no leccy for acrew days but they need to learn the reality that it is bills before booze.

Lived in many shared houses. There were always niggles and strife over noise, mess, rent etc. But we always made sure that no one had more than one bill in their name.

M8nd you when the meter did tun out there was always one tosser who buggered off to his gf for the wknd. And we found out the landlord had let the co. Set the meywr tarriff high to pay debts from orevious students!!

But Multi, it is completely ridiculous that the government should expect parents to, in theory, still be financially responsible for their 24yr old who didn't live at home for 2yrs prior to going to university. Who supported themselves in every way. Their parents were not responsible for paying their adult children's taxes or bills in those years so why do the government believe they should now become responsible once more?

Sadly not all parents do feel any moral obligation. One of DS's friends has minimum loan because of his parent's income, it barely covers the rent. They give him nothing and he is desperately trying to find a job or he will have to leave. Presumably they consider him an independent adult because he is 19.

But that is governments fault, not the fault of his parents. He should be able to take out a full loan, work almost every day of his holidays as lots of students do, myself included, and then pay his loan back on graduating. Of course I wouldn't be belligerent and not financially support my child if the alternative was them struggling. We are not financially struggling. The point is that the government should allow an adult to borrow enough to support themselves through higher education.

It is not true that any house which is not run as a licensed HMO needs a lead tenant. Any house which has 3 or more non related tenants forming 2 or more households counts as an HMO. This does not mean that tenants have to sign a joint tenancy agreement nominating a lead tenant and that that particular tenant is liable for all bills. It is totally possible for each tenant to have an agreement for their room only.

On a joint tenancy agreement all tenants are joint and severally liable for the rent, so if one doesn't pay, the others are jointly liable. This does not extend to bills. The group could take a bill each, join a bill sharing scheme, or be lazy and take the piss like this lot seem to be.

As a landlord who went through hell as a student, I only do individual tenancy agreements so that no student is put in this position. I don't believe it is morally right to make a student who has had to choose second year accommodation after only knowing their prospective housemates for 3 months to risk their financial future and mental well being on such little information and experience

twitterqueen thanks so much for posting this , I will show it to my dc for next year. I hope that your dc is getting it sorted out.

I too would be raging and I would also be helping my dc to sort this out if they were in the same situation. Why on earth would anyone want to let there dc fail. As multishirking so clearly states, they are still learning and they often do need both help and advice.

It is all very well saying that they should sort everything out for themselves, but sometimes they need some help, advice and perhaps a sounding board for them to talk through the options. Of course there will be lessons learned and I am sure this will all be discussed once the current situation has been sorted out.

Op please do come back and tell us how it was sorted.

I really think it's unfair to expect DC to sort it out for himself - they will never have been in this situation before. It is a good lesson in that they will think twice before taking on such a thing on again - it's not a lesson that he should have to learn as people should do the right thing anyway but the point is that they don't and that's why we have enforceable contracts!

Hope you are getting somewhere OP with helping your DC getting this sorted.

Blimey, I went to bed, woke up and find 87 posts on a thread I thought wouldn't interest people very much.

I'm very grateful for all the comments and suggestions.

DC says it's now 'sorted'. I don't know what that means! But it's reading week soon so I guess I'll find out then.

Loads of really good advice here. I will pass it on to DC2 for next year, and then to DC3 for 2 years after that. [resigned face]

I was in that situation too IfIToldYou. Parents were funding my DB through uni at the time and couldn't afford to provide me with the same, so decided unfairly IMO to honour what they'd promised my DB and told me I'd have to do it myself. Their wage meant I'd get minimum funding and the course I wanted to do left very little opportunity to work.

I don't mean to be pedantic tough, I just think it's important that people reading this thread aren't under the impression that parents are legally bound to stump up the money in these cases.