When a Housemate moves out at the end of their lease there are a series of administrative items that need to be processed by Student Rooms. We aim to complete these within 21 days after the expiry of your lease and we appreciate your patience, especially during peak periods of January, February, March and July.
We compile a 'Final Account' statement which checks things like: i) room clean, ii) furniture check, iii) personal items removed, iv) electricity paid, v) interim electricity account, vi) rent paid, vii) other invoices paid, viii) keys returned etc.
The final account will be emailed to you - you will need to email back to confirm in writing that you agree with the Final Account statement, or if you think there are any inaccuracies.
Once the Final Account has been agreed upon you will receive an an email inviting you to activate your account with Consumer and Business Service's Residential Online Bonds (RBO) system. This is the goverment website through which bond refunds are now processed.
In order for us to process your bond refund you will need to follow the link in this email to activate your account.
Once you and Student Rooms have agreed on the bond refund amount on the Final Account we will immediately process the refund via the RBO system. You will get an email from the RBO letting you know that a bond proposal has been made. You then log onto the RBO system to approve the refund proposal. Once you have done that you will be taken to a screen to enter your bank account details for an immediate refund.
We strongly recommend that you keep your Australian Bank account open until this process has been completed, even if you have left the country. The RBO can refund money into overseas bank accounts but this process can take a very long time and is subject to even longer delays. It has proven much quicker and easier for previous housemates to get the money into their Australian account, transfer it themselves and then close the Australian account from overseas. You may wish to contact your bank before your lease to make sure you know how to do all of this.
One more note - after you have activated your RBO account, you are given the option to enter your own bond refund proposal. At this point Student Rooms is notified and are given the option to either accept or reject the proposal. We will automatically reject any proposal if the Final Account has not been completed and agreed to by the Housemate. Once a proposal is rejected by both parties the matter gets escalated to a Tribunal hearing (which will usually take place in 2-3 months). In the interest of you getting your bond back as quickly as possible we strongly recommend that you wait until there is an agreed amount on the Final Account figures. You are welcome to question or disagree an aspect of the Final Account if you believe there to be an inaccuracy.