House share rental advise

[Leakie]

Hi All I am posting on behalf of my Ex wife.

 

My Ex and her new partner live in a house share rental,

 

Two of the other tenants have now left,

The landlord wants the remaining people to pay full rent,for all three rooms that were let.

Also they have found out that the others who have left, there deposits have not been returned.

The Landlord is living in another country(south Africa)

 

So the main question at the moment is the rules regarding house share the same as letting a property.

they are prepared to pay for 2 bedrooms but not the 3rd.

 

At this moment I have not had sight of the contract, (if any and will be speaking to my ex's new partner later.

 

Any advise would be appreciated.

 

Leakie

[ericsbrother]

Is it a house share or is it a subdivided house (bedsits)? If the former then they pay the lot, if the latter then they pay for their rooms.

As for the deposits, that is for those people to chase if they wish but it does lay down a marker as to what the landlord may get up to.

[Leakie]

Hi thank you for your reply

 

From what I can gather, each room was individually rented and they shared the kitchen ect.

 

with regards to the deposit should that come under a tenancy deposit scheme ?

 

Leakie

[ericsbrother]

You would need to look uo the rules for HMO's for that info as I cannot say one way or another. However the deposit is made under pre-agreed terms so just keeping it is not an option allowed.

As your ex is renting a bedsit then there is no reason to pay someone else's rent. Ther should be a tenancy agreement anda method of recording the rent paid otherwise a call to the council's Housing dept may be needed/ LL living abroad makes no difference to their responsibilities as there is always a service address for them and that is the property in question.

[andydd]

There should be a contract or rental agreement, you need to pay whatever that says, it cant be changed halfway, if the landlord wanted to take court action he too would have to rely on any contract,. if there is no contract then technically there is no agreement and no-one owes either side anything !