Although many apartments may be vacant, students still are responsible for rent at the River Mill Apartments in Athens, Ga. (photo by Alex Mckelvey)
By Courtney Smith
Deserted sidewalks, locked classrooms and bountiful parking. The students are away for the summer and the only evidence that the bustling campus community still lives are the faint carbon copies of rent checks paying for empty apartments.
Many students leave Athens for the solace of far-off beaches or time with relatives in the summer. But, regardless of whether the student lives there or not, according to the President of the Athens Apartment Association, most student leases are impossible to break and must be paid in full.
“Student housing is different than the regular apartment style [of management] because we operate on a school year schedule but, apart from that, you are required to pay your entire 12-month lease or else you will default,” the association president and community manager of University Apartments on Riverbend, Wanda Ellis, said.
According to Ellis, many of the residents living in the University Apartments on Riverbend will leave for the first two weeks of summer break and then return to Athens to work or go to school. Others will only live in their Athens apartments on the weekends.
“We don’t have a lot of trouble with students defaulting on their leases because I think they understand that they signed a contract that obligates them to pay, just like if they have a credit card or a car loan,” she said.
Even though she does not have a lot of trouble with students defaulting over the summer, she said that complexes must still insulate themselves from the financial threat and will sometimes work with the tenants to find a compromise.
“Some landlords will set up a payment plan that lets the tenant pay off the debt for a longer period of time or even offer a short-term lease that costs a little more each month but would be cheaper than paying out a lease on an apartment they don’t live in,” she said.
University student Jenna Ziesenhene was able to work out a deal with the River Mill Apartments’ leasing office that allowed her lease to be changed from a three-bedroom apartment rent rate to a lower two-bedroom rate while she and her two roommates were away for the summer.
“We really wanted to just break the lease because none of us are going to be here, but the office told us that if we didn’t pay the rest of the rent, it would hurt our credit scores and our parents’ [credit scores] because they signed some kind of guarantee,” Ziesenhene, an international affairs junior from Bonaire, said.
“So, we decided to just move into the two-bedroom on paper and pay a lower rent, even though none of us, or are things, will be here,” she said.
According to Rivermill Apartments leasing agent Melissa Hill, students can also work with the apartment complex and allow their apartment to be shown to people interested in subleasing.
While offering to show an apartment as a model increases the likelihood that someone will agree to take over the lease, if a sub-leaser is not found, the student will still be forced to pay the rent or else be taken to court for the remaining balance and all court fees.
“It is definitely a lot more expensive for a leaser if a defaulted lease goes to trial because the court fees really add up and they will almost never win and not have to pay,” Hill said. “There are almost no loop-holes that will let someone out of a lease unless they are in the military and get called to duty.”
“If you get called to Iraq, then you can break the lease with a 30-day notice but that is basically the only way it’s possible.”
Edited by Leila Mattimore
Deserted sidewalks, locked classrooms and bountiful parking. The students are away for the summer and the only evidence that the bustling campus community still lives are the faint carbon copies of rent checks paying for empty apartments.
Many students leave Athens for the solace of far-off beaches or time with relatives in the summer. But, regardless of whether the student lives there or not, according to the President of the Athens Apartment Association, most student leases are impossible to break and must be paid in full.
“Student housing is different than the regular apartment style [of management] because we operate on a school year schedule but, apart from that, you are required to pay your entire 12-month lease or else you will default,” the association president and community manager of University Apartments on Riverbend, Wanda Ellis, said.
According to Ellis, many of the residents living in the University Apartments on Riverbend will leave for the first two weeks of summer break and then return to Athens to work or go to school. Others will only live in their Athens apartments on the weekends.
“We don’t have a lot of trouble with students defaulting on their leases because I think they understand that they signed a contract that obligates them to pay, just like if they have a credit card or a car loan,” she said.
Even though she does not have a lot of trouble with students defaulting over the summer, she said that complexes must still insulate themselves from the financial threat and will sometimes work with the tenants to find a compromise.
“Some landlords will set up a payment plan that lets the tenant pay off the debt for a longer period of time or even offer a short-term lease that costs a little more each month but would be cheaper than paying out a lease on an apartment they don’t live in,” she said.
University student Jenna Ziesenhene was able to work out a deal with the River Mill Apartments’ leasing office that allowed her lease to be changed from a three-bedroom apartment rent rate to a lower two-bedroom rate while she and her two roommates were away for the summer.
“We really wanted to just break the lease because none of us are going to be here, but the office told us that if we didn’t pay the rest of the rent, it would hurt our credit scores and our parents’ [credit scores] because they signed some kind of guarantee,” Ziesenhene, an international affairs junior from Bonaire, said.
“So, we decided to just move into the two-bedroom on paper and pay a lower rent, even though none of us, or are things, will be here,” she said.
According to Rivermill Apartments leasing agent Melissa Hill, students can also work with the apartment complex and allow their apartment to be shown to people interested in subleasing.
While offering to show an apartment as a model increases the likelihood that someone will agree to take over the lease, if a sub-leaser is not found, the student will still be forced to pay the rent or else be taken to court for the remaining balance and all court fees.
“It is definitely a lot more expensive for a leaser if a defaulted lease goes to trial because the court fees really add up and they will almost never win and not have to pay,” Hill said. “There are almost no loop-holes that will let someone out of a lease unless they are in the military and get called to duty.”
“If you get called to Iraq, then you can break the lease with a 30-day notice but that is basically the only way it’s possible.”
Edited by Leila Mattimore
Courtney and Leila,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the full version of this story. I like how you tweaked the lead to smooth it out - I'm not sure about the "faint carbon copies" image, but overall it's an impressive effort.
A couple of little things:
-- You've got "are" instead of "our" in a quote toward the bottom.
-- Make sure to put the attribution somewhere that doesn't interrupt the flow of the sentence. Usually this means at the end, sometimes at the beginning, only very rarely in the middle. Look at this sentence:
But, regardless of whether the student lives there or not, according to the President of the Athens Apartment Association, most student leases are impossible to break and must be paid in full.
It's hard to follow from the beginning to the end because of the interrupting attribution. Move that to the end, and the sentence is clearer.
Good story.