Thanks all. I've had another look in the contract which has a clause that we can relet the room without notice period and abandon of goods left as we see fit. He's gone since beginning of March. We'd tried numerous ways to contact him incl embassy and local and Met Police. He finally contacted us in Aug, stating he would come back in a couple of days, he didn't, and then on asking said he would come back asap and keep us updated. This was again 6 weeks ago. Numerous attempts to contact him on his email addresses (incl new one) and Facebook. He does not answer his phone abroad and we know he is not at his home address there either. He has contacted his employer though but not us. We will probably put things into storage as we do understand that things have a value for him. But strictly, this would meet 'abandonment', wouldn't it?