Next years accommodation - change of plans

[juicy0]

Hi

I'm Looking for some advice please if anyone has the time to help?
For reasons I won't go into my daughter has decided she no longer wants to take up her room In a shared house next year. She has not signed a contract but did fill in an application form and pay a share of the holding deposit (£90) in February to secure the property. She has not moved into the property and the lease was due to start in September.
Can she withdraw from the application? I assume she will lose the deposit but if she hasn't signed a contract is she liable for rent?
Thanks.

So what happens to all the other students? Who finds her replacement? Sounds very unfair on everyone else as they might lose the accommodation or be forced to pay her share. I would get to the bottom of why she doesn’t want to continue. It’s a bit shoddy to let everyone down.

@PresentingPercy if I told you one of the other housemates has been bullying her and humiliating her perhaps you might have a different viewpoint? This isn't a decision she has taken lightly but it is impacting her mental health now and she needs to remove herself from the situation. They have 3 months to find someone else

There's usually spare rooms and plenty of people ready to fill them over the summer so I wouldn't worry about that. Has she definitely not signed a contract - that would be very unusual given she's handed over a deposit.

@titchy she definitely hasn't. The deposit was a holding deposit to secure it rather than the security deposit you usually pay when signing a contract of that makes sense.
That's what I thought, plenty of time to find someone else x

I had never heard of holding deposits until this year. But my Dd had to do one too. If your Dd hasn’t signed a contract so I expect you can just walk away. Might ask the bully to stump up the holding fee though. It’s their job to find someone else.

I agree that’s a different situation but you did originally say a change of plans which I took to be less serious.