how easy is it to get a landlord to change the date on their contract?

[bleeping]

we are going to have to get a new student house
the current contract ends in august

the house we want will have a contract that starts in august
this will require us to pay the last months rent, and a deposit for the new house in the same month (august)
my friends dont have the money to do these payments all in one month

how likely is it that i will be able to negotiate with the landlord to put the contract forward to september, from august, and the deposit for september aswell?
they will stll get their 12 months worth of money

[jpkeates]

You can ask.
If there are other people interested in the property it might be an issue.

[Ericthelobster]

how likely is it that i will be able to negotiate with the landlord to put the contract forward to september, from august, and the deposit for september aswell?
they will stll get their 12 months worth of money

From you maybe; but they'll miss a month's-worth of rent money from what you say. Unless there's no other demand for the property it seems pretty unlikely that the landlord would go for that; but as jpkeates says, you can always ask.

God knows why universities and landlords in student towns can't manage to coordinate a standard start date!