Letting agency sues student who nursed dying mother

Victoria Ellis had already paid the firm £1,500

A student who left university to nurse her dying mother in Greater Manchester is being sued by a letting agency for rent on a flat she never stayed in.

Victoria Ellis, 22, is pleading for Leeds-based Parklane Properties to show her "some compassion".

A few months after her mother Susan died, the company sent her a writ for £2,220 with the word "deceased" next to the name of her mother - the guarantor.

The firm said it "sympathised" but it had financial "obligations to meet".

Susan Ellis, of Whitefield, was diagnosed with an aggressive type of leukaemia in August 2008.

A year later and after four courses of chemotherapy it became clear she needed a bone marrow transplant.

Her daughter immediately left the business course she was studying at Leeds University to become her mother's full-time carer.

Miss Ellis said: "She's my mum, I didn't want to be far away her, and didn't see any other option, I needed to be near her."

She had signed a contract with the company to lease the flat in Leeds for a year.

However, shortly before she was due to move in she went to see the manager and explained why she could not live there.

I am broken, I have lost my mum..it's more pressure I don't need this Victoria Ellis

Her father, Philip Ellis, said: "We explained our circumstances, took proof of Sue's illness, explained how serious things were.

"They said they would try to let the flat and get another tenant in.

"Her mum was terribly fragile, she needed her."

Miss Ellis had given Parklane Properties £1,500 for the first term. She did not live in the flat and returned the keys.

However she received a writ from the company after her mother died in January.

"I am broken, I have lost my mum, show me some compassion - it's more pressure, I don't need this."

A Parklane Properties spokesman said: "We made every effort to fill the flat and we have organised viewings at our own cost.

"We have to meet obligations such as salaries, mortgages and loan repayments."