Legal / law advice needed!

Hey team .org

I moved out of a shared student house in June. Up until that point, we had an arrangement for paying bills where one tenant (out of a total of four in the house) would be responsible for paying the bills and managing the accounts (let's call him Tenant 1), whilst the remaining three each paid a quarter of each bill to him directly; the standard protocol for student houses.

Trouble is, Tenant 1 skipped paying the final bills worth several hundred, and has cut all contact and disappeared.

Myself and another tenant (so Tenants 2 and 3) only found out when my parents got a letter at my home address (I live in Rome now) saying "WHERE'S OUR MONEY". Naturally, we contact Tenant 1 who was meant to pay the bills months ago through the only medium we have, which was facebook. Tenant 1 has only replied to a few of our prompts, but he has acknowledged:

"The problem with paying the bills has to do with my Santander bank account (which I just found out yesterday)and has nothing to do with you guys. Something to do with my account been closed down (I gave -housemate X- an hint of this problem). I've called santander and they promised this will be sorted out. But please not to panic I should be back in London in less than 2 weeks and will sort this out. I'm so sorry for the inconviniencies."

and

"its totally my fault I should have called the companies to ensure they get all their money before now. But I promise I will sort this out. sorry guys"

But it has been several weeks and nothing more has happened. My parents received another letter from the debt collectors, I forwarded it to Tenant 1 but still no response. The Police say they can't ask the University we all attended for Tenant 1's permanent address (which the Uni will have, to send his degree certificate to) because that's confidential. For all we know he is back home in Nigeria and it looks like he's going to get away with this.

So myself and Tenant 3 are worried. We've already paid him our quarters of the bills, and it's looking more and more likely that we're going to have to cover the entire bills furthermore! Neither of us are earning money and can't afford to do this. The final Tenant 4 is Spanish and also cut all contact with us (for a different reason; she didn't help clean the house before she left and didn't want us to complain to her), and is back in Spain presumably. I've emailed her and had no reply.

Please help us. It's so difficult for me to do anything from Italy, and Tenant 3 is just overwhelmed with having to take care of everything at her end, with enough to deal with already.

[squirrel_hunter]

How did the debt collectors get your name, are all of you named on the bill?

Originally Posted by squirrel_hunter

How did the debt collectors get your name, are all of you named on the bill?

I don't know how they got my name. I am actually the only person who has apparently received these letters from the debt collectors. I presume it's because (for some reason) my name was the first on the bills, the companies got my non-Uni home address from my estate agent, and then sent me the letter.

Tenants 1, 2, and 3 are on the bills. For some reason, Tenant 4 (the Spanish girl) is not. We haven't had a reason why not, but it's peculiar because we gave the companies all of our names in the same phone call when setting-up the accounts.

[squirrel_hunter]

The first thing I would do is phone the companies involved and explain the situation, both the original companies and the debt collectors. Explain to them that this is the first you know of it so will need a little time to understand what has happened and where if any extra charges have been added, and look at arranging payment. Unfortunately from my understanding of when I was in shared houses if your name is on there you are liable.

If I've understood correctly then you, and the others have paid Tenant 1 money who hasn't then paid the companies any? Are the Police not interested in the aspect of Tenant 1 has done a runner with your money? I'm sure there is a law against that or something...

Contact Tenant 1 again after talking to the companies. Give him 48hours to pay. Check with the companies that they have received it. If not report him for theft. Once his back in the country and you know where he is, pass this information to the Police.

[pookie]

collect any other evidence of the bills being split and paid. I'd argue you are only liable for 1/4 of the bills.

you could try reporting online.. http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud and get an crime number to supply to the companies to support your position.
ref ( http://content.met.police.uk/Site/reportingfraud)

I've messaged OP on Facebook but just to briefly deal with some of the responses here:

Yes there is a law against it, there are several you could argue it is caught by, but none which would interest the police. I've been dealing with the police recently in a case where an accountant transferred himself £70,000 from a company's money that he was working for and had access to the bank account. It is shown on the statements, at a time he was in the office. The police are still unsure whether to prosecute.

In relation to only being liable for 1/4, I see the argument. Unfortunately, if you're name is on the agreement more often than not you're going to be found to be joint and severally liable. Aka, you've gotta pay the lot!

It's a bit of a rubbish situation but unfortunately these things happen, quite often between students too.

Originally Posted by allantheboss

I don't know how they got my name. I am actually the only person who has apparently received these letters from the debt collectors.

I've been in situations dealing with debt collectors before, though for much more innocent reasons (bills were paid but another company thought they were supplying us).

My advice would be don't speak to the debt collectors (ideally don't even admit its you). No good can come of it, they just try to convince you to 'pay right now over the phone'. Speak to the company over the phone, ideally get someone useful's direct extension or full name and ask for them when you call the call centre.

Also, keep notes of any phone calls and all correspondence with them.

Thanks guys. We've already informed the Police. Tenant 2 is doing much of the legwork because I'm in Rome, but I'm told that the Police can't retrieve his address from the Uni or estate agents because of confidentiality (...) and so it appears we're kind of stuck. Maybe if we tried the police again we'd get another officer who may be able to help?

We can't let him get away with this. We will be covering Tenant 1's costs of the bills, probably Tenant 4's as well, PLUS the fact that we've already paid our parts. Come on! This is pathetic. Is it really that easy to get away with it? There MUST be protocol in place for something like this?

[Red Herring]

For the police to get involved you would need to show that when they collected the money from you they had no intention of paying the bill. This is difficult, you might have a chance if they were collecting from you for month two, when they still hadn't passed on the money you had given them for month one if that makes sense?