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Students have won a £6,500 rent row with a landlord who took them to court despite the trio being left traumatised after their housemate died in the property.

The housemates refused to return to the home in Canterbury, Kent, after their close pal Robert Chavda died following an MDMA overdose at the home in January last year.

Daniel McCourt, 22, Elon Carlton-Carew, 22, and Adam Waller, 24, said they were all too deeply affected by their friend's death to continue living there.

They refused to return to the house, informing Werner Toogood, who runs the Student Lettings Agency that has around 200 homes on its books, that they want to be rehoused.

However he failed to find them a new home, and the heartbroken trio were then relocated to a new home by bosses at Canterbury Christ Church University.

The university also provided them with counselling, as well as deferring their university courses for a year.

But Mr Toogood insisted that the three students pay off the remaining five months of their contract.

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This amounted to £6,529, forcing the three upset students to a hearing at Medway Civil Court.

(Image: SWNS)

He said in a letter to the students: "We are sympathetic to your problems, but it is not realistic for you to expect the rent to be waived because of circumstances that are affecting you."

Daniel McCourt's mum Nicola, 48, of Herefordshire, led the defence of all three students.

She told the court how her son - who found Mr Chavda's body - had been best friends with him at school.

Mrs McCourt added: "On the morning Rob was discovered, we got in touch with his parents and they had to come to the house where their son had died.

"Dan saw their raw grief, which has had a profound effect on him.

"It would not have been a happy home for them, if they had stayed.

"Most of the boys had been at school together since Year Seven, and Dan would have been considered Rob's best mate.

"It's a terrible tragedy and we have such deep sympathy for Mr and Mrs Chavda.

"They have lost a child, and what they've been through is against the natural order of things.

"Our decision to fight this legal action has never been about money."

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Mr Toogood even wrote to Mr Chavda's grieving parents.

He assured them them could pay off his "rental debt" over a period of two years.

(Image: SWNS)

However at court Judge Simon Gill sided with the students.

The judge ruled that Mr Toogood had carried out extensive renovation work to the home soon after the students had refused to return.

He told Medway Civil Court that by carrying out the renovations he had effectively 'repossessed' the house - meaning the former tenants were not liable for the payment.

The court heard how 21-year-old Mr Chavda's body was found by childhood pal Daniel McCourt.

He was left "deeply traumatised" by finding his friend's body after he died from a brain haemorrhage.

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The three students had offered to pay three months rent instead of the five months claimed by Mr Toogood, but he refused.

Mr McCourt's father Roly McCourt, 52, said after the hearing: "We were amazed that as a landlord of over 200 properties in Canterbury and the director of a letting agency that he didn't understand implied surrender and brought this action to court for rents he wasn't entitled to."

A fourth tenant, Jack Dick, paid in full to avoid court action.