I hope there are some wonderful legal eagles on here that can help me, as I can't afford to get a solicitor involved. This isn't as much about the money we are likely to lose, but about the letting agency (IMHO) bullying these poor girls for what I believe is their mistake.
I'll TRY and describe the situation succinctly (I'm a wordy person, so apologies if I ramble).
Student property has six bedrooms. When DD moved in (July 2023), there were only 3 other tenants for a little while, and their tenant agreement, which we signed as guarantor on 19.12.22, stated their four names only. After a few weeks, another two girls joined them. For some reason, they were issued their own, separate tenancy agreement, with their guarantors, that just stated their two names, instead of a revised contract with all six students named, that I believe we should all have signed.
One of the two students who joined later changed her mind about starting uni and dropped out just before they moved in (July 2023). Her guarantor negotiated a proportion of the annual rent with the agency.
Since then, the letting agency harassed the remaining five tenants to pay the rent they're missing out on, via text and emails.
They have now got a sixth person to take the available room and a new tenancy agreement was sent around all the tenants and their guarantors on 08.01.24 to signify this (which we have signed). Up until this point, the two tenancy agreements (the one with DD and her 3 friends; and the other, with the 2 students who joined later) were the only ones in existence.
However, the agency is still demanding all five girls pay the missing rent for the period of 01.07.23 - 08.01.24. When we pointed out that we didn't see how we were liable for the tenant who dropped out, as she wasn't named on our DD's agreement, we were sent a 'contract' showing all six students, with our signatures dated 19.12.22. I know for a fact that we didn't sign two contracts that day, and I can clearly tell that they have cut and pasted our signatures and the date of that signature onto this contract.
Can they do this? Is that legal?
The letting agency told us that the girls verbally agreed to covering the rent for the outgoing tenant (my DD said they were put under pressure to say so, and threatened with the lot of them being turfed out).
Surely, that's not enough? If our legal responsibilities had changed as guarantors, to include two more girls from the four we originally signed to be liable for, isn't this a new legal agreement? Otherwise, they could just add the whole street on there!
They are now threatening to take the missing rent money from their deposit. I don't see how they can do this, as the deposit scheme (which the girls are signed up for) is not there for this, and more so if they're not liable for this missing rent in the first place.
Advice please, before I go in all guns blazing - it would be so much appreciated. My DD is autistic and worried that she's going to get in trouble, but I also don't believe she should give in when the letting agency has failed to do their due diligence and have us sign one contract with all six girls from the off.
(I realise that I failed to make the explanation concise).