various real life things

[chibichan]

I am in a very good mood today. :D I just applied for a job as a bookseller in Waterstones in Perth. Working in a bookshop would actually be a fantastic job, given my big love for reading! In the application for the job I described my love for reading in great detail - I mentioned I had an ereader which allows me to carry more than 200 books on it (and my list of books is continuously growing) and that I love to read Japanese manga as well, so hopefully that will count in my favour. I think I wrote a pretty good application for this job and the website said I was a good candidate for the job based on my answers to their questions... which means I'll be super-crushed if they don't hire me for it. /sarcasm... sort of The ad for this job was posted today as well, so that means I'm one of the first people to apply for it, which hopefully makes me look good in their eyes. Keeping all my fingers crossed here!

I was a little bummed this morning because I applied yesterday for a job at H&M and they replied today saying I didn't get the job. Which was... a very quick response and obviously not what I was hoping for. But whatever, I like Waterstones better anyway. As for the job as a spa receptionist, I'm still waiting for a response on that one. I sent an email today and they said to wait until next Wednesday for a reply to my application. So basically all I need to do now is wait. I really hope I can get a job at either of them!

In university news, I received an email last week from the law school saying I am liable for termination of studies. Basically, because I haven't passed a subject before the second anniversary of the year following the date of first matriculation, my studies are liable for termination. The options for me at this point are: a) to repeat the current year of study if I want to still attend university; b) to take a year out, redo the examinations and then resume the degree the following year; or c) to terminate my studies now.

So I replied that I had discussed what I wanted to do with my advisor of studies and that I was going to take the year out and redo semester 1/second year exams in December. This situation has come up because I haven't passed a first year subject (Criminal Law) and I should have retaken the exam for that this year, but I didn't since nobody freaking told me. I'm an international student, I didn't know that's how universities in the UK worked - how was I supposed to know I had to retake that exam when no one told me? So yeah, I'm a bit ticked off at the university for this. I did ask, however, if I could retake the Criminal Law exam as well, since I can't get my Diploma if I don't pass that subject. Ugh, university, why are you making dropping out and getting a Diploma so hard? So now I'm waiting for the Committee to meet tomorrow and they will let me know what they decide on Thursday.

And lastly, as for the renting place, they still haven't found anyone to rent my room. They haven't requested any money, but I noticed yesterday that they haven't given me back my deposit of £250, which they said they would give back in full. And that was a week ago. So I emailed them about it and the girl said she would pass the message on to her colleague who takes care of deposits. I checked again this morning and the deposit is still not back. I've decided that I'll wait one more day and if my deposit is not back by tomorrow, I'll email them again. I'm really not sorry for pestering them like this - the money should have been given back to me a week ago, when I cancelled the room. They've had more than a week to give me back the money and they haven't. They're taking their sweet time and I won't stand for it. It's like they're ticking me off on purpose.

Andrew's sister's husband is a lawyer, so Andrew's father sent him an email explaining my situation and asking if I'd have a case. I've re-read their contract terms and the special condition of the contract is that the tenant must remain a student in full-time education. So it would follow that, if I'm not a student anymore, I don't fulfil the condition of the contract, therefore it must be void or at least voidable. I mean, a contract is made of an offer, an acceptance and, most important of all, consideration (which is, to put it simply, 'I do something for you, you do something for me') - that's the very basis of contract law. It's just so strange that they can tell me I have to pay for something that I am ultimately not using. There's no consideration in that - I'm not getting anything from the contract, while they are still getting my money. That can't be right. It definitely seems very unfair to me. So I'm waiting for a reply on this matter as well.

In health news, I took 10mg of medicine this morning instead of 20mg. So far, so good. :D

Anyway, that's about it for real life. I hope everything goes well, especially with the job applications!

Comments

[capn_mactastic]

For what it's worth, and keeping in mind that I'm not a lawyer, I think what you're gonna find is that by no longer meeting that condition you'll be considered to have breached the contract, not that it'll be voided. One of the things you were doing for them was being a student, but you didn't keep that side of your promise and that'll cost them money. Also they're not telling you that only students can live there just to be awkward, it'll be because of council tax. Students don't pay it, so it doesn't apply to student housing, but if even one person living in the house is not a student then the council wants seventy-five percent of what's due on the property and they can be awkward as hell about giving that discount. A two bedroom house in the boonies can be over 1k a year, so if this is a typical 6-8 bedroom student house in a city then we're talking about a sizeable chunk of change, possibly even more than your rent. By no longer being a student you've put the company in a position where they're out of pocket if they let you live there, because of the tax, and they're out of pocket if they let you void the contract, because they could have had that room rented out and to find a late renter is a gamble, so the alternative is for you to pay rent until they get another renter. Otherwise they're losing money because of your choices, and there isn't a business in the world that's happy with that set-up. The offer to let you find a late renter was their way of giving you a chance, and it's actually fairer than you'd have gotten at a lot of places. To be honest, I'm really surprised to hear that you're getting your deposit back, you were lucky there.

Good luck with the job though!

[chibichan]

I can understand why they want only students to live there, but I've double-checked my contract law notes, and I can assure you I haven't breached the contract. The special condition was there to make sure only students could enter the contract, but I haven't breached anything in the tenancy agreement. I haven't breached the contract itself, I just don't fulfill that special condition anymore. Those are two different things. If I wasn't a student at the time, I wouldn't have been able to sign the contract in the first place. The fact that I'm not a student now is something no one could have predicted (including me) and I understand it makes the situation awkward for them, but it is a significant change for the contract. I think it's a simple case of frustration of the contract - something important after the contract was signed happened that was not the fault of either party, but that has an impact on the contract. Mine would be frustration from a non-occurrence of an event (i.e. me going to uni) which was essential to the contract. This, plus the fact that I signed the contract in good faith at the time, thinking I would have gone to uni, makes me believe I'd have a case. (The consequences of frustration are that the parties are relieved of their obligations and thus brings the contract to an end.)

I don't want to scam them or anything - I just don't want to pay £4,000 (which my dad would be paying and given the situation in Italy, he really can't afford to waste money like this) for a room that I'm not using. It wasn't my intention to put them in trouble, just like it wasn't my intention to leave uni at the time I signed the contract... but I just can't afford to pay so much money for, essentially, nothing.

[capn_mactastic]

I wasn't suggesting that you set out to scam them, but I think I'm just a bit o_O that you seem to think they're being completely unfair by not saying "oh, that's fine, here's your deposit back, HAVE A NICE LIFE!" I dunno, maybe it's because I had a lot of genuinely shitty landlords who would try to gouge me any time they could. These guys kept the room for you, on your word that you were gonna pay them, preventing other paying students from having it, and now keeping that room for you the way they said they would in the contract is gonna lose them money. And you can't void a rent agreement on a top-floor flat because you've broken your leg, so I doubt they're going to consider you choosing to take a year out as a faultless random happening that nobody could prevent.

For what it's worth, what's making me really o_O is the way you're going on about the deposit. The rent is one thing - you can't live there - but one of the reasons you give a deposit on a student rental is in case you don't show up, to cover the costs of getting someone else in, and you're going on about how you're not sorry about pestering them for it. That deposit would be long gone on a standard rental, because that's the part you're supposed to sacrifice if you have to get out of the agreement or don't fulfil it, and you're saying you won't stand for them not giving it back. You're really, really lucky to be getting that back.

I get not being able to afford it - I barely got through Uni and I paid £15 a week for my walk-in closet room in a shared house - I think it's the way you're talking about it is just making me confused. At first I was just gonna nod and smile, and not bring any of this up, but then I figured that maybe you don't know rental companies do talk to one another, so this could affect your ability to find a new place - you'd probably get sympathy over the lease, but hearing that you're flipping out over losing the deposit when you didn't take a property that'd been kept for you is a straight up "problem tenant" stamp.

[chibichan]

My choice of taking the year out is not so much of a choice anymore, given that I might be liable for termination of studies and my only options for that would have been to either repeat the year I just did or to take the year out and redo the exam that I failed and going back to being a full-time student the year later. But no one could have predicted this - when I signed the contract, I didn't know I was going to take the year out and likewise the renting company couldn't have predicted it either. I understand their point of view on the room, I really do, it's just the whole wasting money on a room I'm not living in that really bothers me. Maybe it's just a case that this has never happened to them before, so there's nothing in the contract that addresses this particular situation.

If I could just pay a cancellation fee that was equal to the deposit (or even greater) without having to pay the whole rent, I would gladly do it. If I had the choice between getting the deposit back and paying full rent, or just paying them the deposit without having to pay full rent, I would pick the latter. It's not so much the deposit the problem, I was complaining that they'd had a week and a half to give it back and didn't. If I was told the deposit could not have been given back to me, I wouldn't mind. But they told me more than a week ago that they would give it back and they still haven't. That's what bothers me.

I think this whole thing is stressing me and bothering me even more than it would usually do because my parents have been blaming me pretty hard for the situation with the renting company (I had a fight with them about this a week or so ago and it was not nice). Plus the fact that the cost of it is quite high, etc. it's just putting so much pressure on me and generally putting me in a bad mood. I know you're looking out for me and saying this stuff for my sake and I appreciate it. :) I think what I'll do now is wait for the brother-in-law of my boyfriend's father, who is a lawyer, to reply to my email with hopefully some legal advice and if he says nothing can be done about the situation, I'll just give up. Although I can't guarantee my dad will give up, given that he's the one paying for it as I don't have a job yet, and that he's also very stubborn... but at this point we'll just have to wait and see.

[fujicori]

Yikes, that sounds like the sort of thing a school should tell its international students. Or at least have in some booklet or on their website or something. (Though I'm not too surprised, since the one time I had to take exams at a different school, it was like herding buffalo with bubbles to get info on how exams worked there.)

I know nothing about law, but from a common sense perspective, a contract specifying that one party be a student still being valid as-is when that party is no longer a student does seem strange. Though I don't know if it'd just be void since from their perspective, you are the one not keeping their end of the bargain.

Good luck with the bookseller and spa applications!

[chibichan]

Yeah, I was really surprised no one told me anything. Instead, I found out I had to retake that exam when I went on their website to see my grade for the other exams that I'd done - and suddenly Criminal Law appeared, with 'Unauthorised Absence' written next to it. And I'd like to point out that it wasn't there before. It popped up at the end of the year. Couldn't they have put it there with the other exams I had to do as well, instead of having it pop up at the end, when nothing could be done about it? Ugh.

I think the contract could be frustrated (impossible to perform), because it was essential for me to be a full-time student and the non-occurrence of that event (i.e. me going to uni) does have a huge impact on the contract. I mean, if I hadn't been a student at the time I signed the contract, I wouldn't have been able to enter it in the first place. So why am I still bound by it if I'm not a student anymore? Plus, as I said, I'm not getting anything back from this contract. There is no consideration here. I can't believe a contract like this can still be valid.

I just think they must have never had a case like mine before (signed the contract in good faith that I'd go to uni, then later decided to take the year out), because their contract doesn't even mention that kind of situation. I never wanted to cause them trouble, but the fact is, I just can't afford to spend a year's rent on an empty room that I'm not using. I just can't have my parents wasting money like that.

Thank you! :)

[shellblade]

BOOKSELLER?! I really do hope you'll get the job~ :)

*sends positive vibes*

[chibichan]

Thank you~!! :D

[tsukiyo_spelldust]

Oooo bookseller!! I hope you get the job there! ^_^

[chibichan]

Thank you! :D I hope so too!

[muladhara]

OH MAN BOOKSHOP JOB. I CAN'T WORDS. (I hope you get it because it would be the best! You could read while waiting to serve people and you wouldn't get told off! You can rec books and have conversations about them and *_* I AM SO JEALOUS ALREADY).

(Oh wait, I read it properly - maybe you're not allowed to read while working in Waterstones. But you know what I mean, right?)

I got nothing really to say about the uni/renting place except just shaking my head at them. Can't believe they're causing you such hassle between them.

[chibichan]

I KNOW, RIGHT? IT WOULD BE SO AMAZING. (And yes, I know what you mean, haha! :D) Of course, it's still not sure I will get it... although I really hope I do!

Shaking my head with you. I am especially disappointed at my university - not informing me that I had to redo an exam and instead waiting until the examination period was over to suddenly tell me that I hadn't sat the exam (that I had no idea I had to resit in the first place), when nothing could be done about it. And now they're threatening to terminate my studies because of this and that might interfere with me getting the Diploma. It's just... ugh. I'm so glad I'm leaving in December.

[muladhara]

I have got everything crossed for you :)

Urgh, that's awful. They really need to check their system for this (that's not exactly what I mean, but I can't think how else to word it?)