Can one student tenant end a whole house share tenancy?

[jazzmin]

My DS is moving into a house share next month. Sadly, one of his future housemates, after doing zero revision decided not to attend any exams. He has been told to leave.
He has been told by the agent he has to find a replacement for his room. He thinks he can give 2 months notice - for the whole house. I get he doesn’t want to be forking rent out for the year, but surely the other 5 youngsters can’t be made homeless at the end of August, before they’ve even moved in for the next year, against their will?
it seems the new rules have some grey areas but this is rather worrying!

Yes it only takes 1 tenant to give notice. I would advise the remaining tenants to attempt to renegotiate with the landlord, whilst looking for a 4 bed house.

@jaxx that is just awful. Youngsters heading off back home in the summer, paying for a house all summer, then finding they can’t move into it next term. 😩

And what next? Any argument over the year in a student house, one person can give notice for all of them? Landlords surely won’t want empty houses mid year!?

i don’t think it was well thought out legislation to be honest, I think. Landlords will probably renegotiate rather than have no rent at all and an empty property but it is early days so who knows.

If it’s a joint & several tenancy, then yes, he can.

the others need to try and search for a replacement tenant.

This legislation is poorly thought out for:
Students
Students who have no family in uk and therefore have no one to be be guarantors. Previously landlords would accept in a group that these tenants paid 6 months up front. Now that’s less likely to be accepted.
New arrivals to to the uk - again no guarantor possibly and issues with credit checks etc.

Hopefully they can find a person reasonably quickly.
Anecdotally my son who has just finished his studies said that ppl are not moving from their student houses because there is a general perception it’s going to be hard to find somewhere new. It’s just better to stay where they are.

Well the letter of the law says this is what can happen. In reality the remaining tenants will want to get a replacement in asap and the landlord is quite likely to agree to this rather than have to find a whole new set of tenants. If a replacement tenant isn’t found then the other will probably have to pay the difference.

They are all actively trying to find someone. It is tricky when they haven’t even moved in yet, and exams finish this week so they are all heading home,
There are many positives of the renters bill, but some could backfire. Imagine your child’s housemate drops out/ falls out with housemates in Feb/March. They then give 2 months notice.
The whole house get made homeless a couple of weeks before their end of year exams!

It’s the entire tenancy that gets severed. The remaining tenants can take out a new tenancy if they find a replacement and landlord agrees. Which they will, cos obvs no landlord want to have an empty house.

Overseas students can pay for guarantors though. There several companies that offer this.

It will be near impossible to find a new tenant in March, for just a couple of months, surely?!

They’ll have to do separate contacts surely from now on for each room

The legislation is not suitable for student rentals and house shares. The Government were warned but went ahead. Each time someone gives the two months notice to leave the other flatmate/s have to get a new tenancy drawn up. extra work and money for the agent who the landlord has to pay each time if they use one and pay for the checks, terrible uncertainty for the tenant/s who want to stay. Some agents are doing all the affordability and guarantor and reference checking each time too. So, if your circumstances have changed you may find yourself homeless if you fail the checks, even if you have always paid on time.

@Unexpectedlysinglemum it will definitely change things in the future. Luckily we only guarantee our son’s room, but just as worrying the thought he will lose his house.

My son and his current flatmates are in private halls. They have all just finished and it’s been difficult to find somewhere for next year.

It’s very expensive imo. And not all overseas students have lots of money

Sympathies. This is especially tricky if a student fails a year and the summer resits…or just wants to leave.

Suddenly the onus is on the remaining tenants to fill the rent gap, as far as I can see.

I’d love somebody to tell me that isn’t the case (please chip in if you can direct me somewhere).

Even thinking about DD’s year in halls (so not captured by legislation, but timetables are prob similar going forward). DD’s exams finished 2 days before the end of term (STEM) just over a week ago. Various of her friends had no need to go near campus from about mid-May, plenty of others before Whitsun. I’m pretty certain that some kids finished even earlier.

It’s going to get messy, isn’t it, if a single student can give 2 months’ notice for the whole house.

@jazzmin looking at it another way, if your child was the one who was leaving uni unexpectedly then you'd be pleased they could break the contract rather than being compelled to pay for the full year.

There may be an option for the remaining tenants to ask the landlord to agree to them covering the full rent (including the rent of the departing student) until they find another tenant but that would possibly require a new contract.

We're going to have a similar issue next summer because my son will be leaving his rental property to do a year in industry. Hopefully the remaining tenants will find someone to replace him.

What a stupid rule. How can this possibly work? One student can mess it all up for the others potentially- it makes the whole thing quite precarious, particularly when you are moving in with people you have only known for a very short time.

Joint and several tenancies have always been precarious for other reasons. Hopefully estate agents will develop processes for dealing with this particular situation though. Most landlords won't want the hassle of re-advertising, so will allow.the remaining students to replace the departing tenant. There will inevitably be some costs associated with re-doing the tenancy agreement, but there always was in this scenario. All that has happened is that the stress/responsibility has shifted from the departing student to the remaining students.

If landlords/agents were sensible they should also stop advertising their properties until after Easter. Friendship groups that have been established for more than a few weeks are far less likely to implode.

In this situation, if the existing students don’t have ano5e Roberson to replace the leaving student, the students (either the one leaving or probably the ones remaining) should approach the LL or agent and suggests a mutual surrender. This means the LL agrees to stop the tenancy before it begins. They will lose their deposits. The reason LLs might agree to this, if if you point out that otherwise, the remaining students will give notice after the first day of the tenancy and the LL will be left with an empty property after the 2 months notice, mid academic year. This is harder to re-let than now.

A better alternative is to find another student. The onus does become on the remaining students rather than the leaving student, which seems unfair, but that’s the nature of the new law. They can then ask for a change of one tenant or again for a mutual surrender and an immediate new contract with the new person named as the last tenant.

It is better to act now or as soon as this happens if it’s earlier in year. LLs can re-let if there is more time and are more likely to agree mutual surrender. They are likely to listen to suggestions as they don’t want students to give notice at the start of contract, as they now can from day 1 of tenancy. Note, you can’t give notice before it starts.

Good communication with the person leaving is key. Agree with them if they are prepared to contribute anything to lost deposit. Unfortunately, they will all lose their deposits if the tenancy is mutually surrendered. So the least costly option is to find a replacement student.

It’s pretty crap. It’s always been crap, but much of the burden of someone dropping out has now moved onto the remaining students, from the leaving one, which is where it mostly lay before.

I don't see why this is inherently worse than one housemate disappearing and refusing to pay rent in the middle of a 12 month tenancy, leaving the others liable for the rent?

If the others are unable to find a new tenant, then they will surely just have to cover the cost of the missing rent between them as they would have done under the old rules. Only under the new rules, they might be able to move out a bit sooner?

We're in the situation where one tenant for next September is hanging on by a thread thinking about handing notice in on July 1st, and DS and the others haven't found a replacement yet. I reckon there is likely to be a lot of churn and houses coming back on the market on July 2nd, but then we have to pay rent for house 1 for the two month notice period and again for house 2 probably for almost the same two months! Also need to have to pay another deposit and first month's rent upfront without having the first returned yet. It's a lot.

Landlords might be happy with double rent over the summer but they won't be when everyone leave by May next year once exams are done.