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!

I think students only being responsible for their own room is quite unusual. Great if you can get it, but not the norm.

Def check the express terms of any guarantor agreement you signed.

And the risk remains that any individual can serve notice at any point from day 1 leaving them all homeless 2 months later.

They are going to need to be proactive in discussing options with each other and probably contacting the LL or agent.

They might decide it’s best to seek mutual surrender and warn LL that if they don’t agree there’s a risk they will serve notice on first day. They can then seek another smaller property …but will lose deposit. Or they can decide to be really active in finding a replacement and getting the contract adjusted. It will be impirtant to make sure the leaver doesn’t give notice if this is their decision. So clear understanding of the implications of different options are key.

The only way to avoid the risk of this will be private halls with individual rather than household tenancies.

I know someone who l’s faced this with a student who is the one dropping out. Had fallen out with other housemates over the issue. Had reached deadlock in discussion …or silence. In the end they went to the LL and asked for mutual surrender now (this is possible before tenancy begins) and said they’d serve notice on day 1 otherwise. L L accepted mutual surrender as it was a few weeks ago and they thought they could relay better in May than Nov. So now the remaining students have to find somewhere else. But leaver felt no choice as communications broke down. And unfortunately that’s often the prob with 19/20 yr olds.

Hope it all works out.

from the other point of view my daughter had a housemate who was abusive to the point that the police were called & he was arrested. He locked the others out of the house, ransacked their rooms, threatened them & stood in the middle of the road ranting and raving at the neighbours.

The other three could do nothing. He was released as there wasn’t enough to bring charges and although the landlord offered to end the tenancy early, he refused so they were stuck.

all three other tenants moved out & went to stay with friends but they were then liable for the rent for the rest of the tenancy. Luckily all of them found people to take them in as a temporary measure.

If your son is only liable for his own share of the rent, have you double checked that it definitely isn't separate individual agreements for all the housemates?

@jazzmin one of the many things not thought through with this legislation.
Sharers could really come unstuck..

That sounds an extreme situation and not like my son has.

I put the contract through chat gpt. It said a grey area. The letting agent said all on the leaver to sort out. I’ll update on what happens!

It was an extreme situation, but since it happened I’ve heard of quite a few young people this kind of thing has happened to.

does the tenancy say it is joint & several? If so then every tenant is jointly liable and unless there is very specific wording then guarantors are jointly liable too.

It used to be on the leaver to sort out. But sine the RR Act of May the law has changed. They key here isn’t so much who is responsible to pay, but the fact 1 student can unilaterally give notice and that makes all of them homeless.

Luckily, the guarantor firm explicitly says we are only responsible for my son’s share, not others.
The letting agent told the leaver he needed to find a replacement. You would think they’d be up to speed on the new laws.
As I said, fingers crossed they find someone and this worry will be for nothing. It is amicable at the moment, I don’t think the leaver would willingly make all his friends homeless. The landlord may be willing to compromise rather than have an empty house in September too.

You may be only responsible for your son's share, but your son's share will include the other housemates' shares if they go awol and their outstanding debt can't be recovered from their guarantors!

Most guarantor agreements say that, but if it's a joint and several contract, your dc (and therefore their guarantor) could find that they are jointly liable for the whole property in any case. Not saying that this is the situation for your ds, but I've seen people caught out by this previously.

There can be quite a few students who start looking for a room over the summer, for various reasons. Those who get a place through clearing; those who repeat a year; others who have been shafted by the friends they thought they were sharing with, or suddenly split up with boyfriend/girlfriend and can't face sharing; or others who just left it late.

My DS only found his placement in industry in August last year. He didn't sign up for a share with his pals because he thought he'd be away working, so when he hadn't got anything by July , he started trying to find a room in a house share, thinking he would have to continue with the studying part of the course. His friend didn't get an industry placement, and had to find a room instead.

The letting agent should also help with finding a replacement , and there will be loads of Facebook boards and things like that. Or Sparerooms.com. I would be telling the letting agents firmly that it is not down to the leaver to find a new tenant.

As I have said, this is not the case here.

So does the tenancy agreement state that you are only guaranteeing one sixth of the total rent or does it say you are guaranteeing your child’s liability.

it is very unusual (though not impossible) for the former to be the case & required very specific wording.

The guarantor says the amount per month I am guarantor for which is a sixth of the total rent.
Still kind of not the point of the post - no one will be liable for paying it for the year if he can give 2 months notice and they will all be without a house to move into next term.

I had another thought about council tax too if he is no longer a student. That will be a lot on his own, even if only for a couple of months.

Most international students I know end up in private halls precisely because of lack
of guarantors.

If you think it is bad that one student can end the tenancy - in Scotland they all need to agree to end the tenancy so if one leaves the country /goes awol without doing so they cannot end the tenancy!!! This has just changed so you can now give the other tenants in a shared tenancy theee months notice then unilaterally submit one months notice to the landlord.

The guarantor company needs to be paid continuously by the tenant for their guarantor services, like an insurance policy, and they only offer a year’s contract at a time, dependent on the tenant’s circumstances. So while these new tenancies are of indefinite length, the guarantor service certainly isn’t, rendering it useless in my opinion.