There are millions of vulnerable renters in the UK who don’t know their rights and often get taken advantage of by rogue landlords.
But one group you’d expect to know their stuff are university students.
If you're renting privately for the first time, it can be hard to understand the rental market, or the minimum legal standards rented homes and landlords should attain.
That might be OK if the rents were cheap as student accommodation used to be, but these days it’s often MORE expensive than other types of rented property, not less.
To compound the problem, students are often in cities that they’re unfamiliar with and, particularly in their first and second years, too busy to notice their sub-standard accommodation or landlord.
But the government is keen to fix the UK’s ‘broken’ housing market including the rental sector and wants students to swot up on a different type of syllabus; knowing their rental rights.
For students who’ve moved into their first privately rented accommodation, here’s our graduate guide.
Before you move in, ensure you:
- CHECK you get an email confirming when your rental deposit was received by one of the three government-approved protection schemes. The agent or landlord managing the property is not allowed to pocket the cash; it must be protected by a third party.
- ASK for a copy of the property’s up-to-date Gas Safety report and look at the property’s electrics and water supply. Do they look safe?
- READ the property’s moving-in inventory report in detail. It may be a bore, but if it’s not accurate then it could cost you a lot of money when you move out.
- LOOK at the ceilings and check they have a working smoke alarm on every floor. The law requires that they do.
- TAKE meter readings as soon as possible and ring the utility companies to sort out the bills. Whose name is going to be on them, for example?
- ASK the agent or landlord managing the property for their email and phone number. When the boiler fails on a freezing January morning, it’ll be a lifesaver. No one likes going to lectures after a cold shower.
- REMEMBER: If white goods supplied by the landlord or agent inside the property fail, it is their responsibility to fix or replace them, not the tenant’s.
- CHECK: Did the landlord or agent supply a copy of the government’s How to Rent guide? It’s not great literature, but if the tenants haven’t received it then it’s much harder for them to be evicted at a later date. Worth knowing!
- READ the assured shorthold tenancy agreement or AST tenants are usually given to sign. They are not all standard – some landlords slip in ridiculous clauses, for example banning the use of Bluetack.
- GET READY: Tenants need to tee-up their parents to become guarantors. Many landlords, nervous that young students have no credit, employment or renting history, ask students’ parents to guarantee their offspring will pay the rent.
- BE SAFE: If the property is rented through a letting agent, ask if they are registered with both a ‘client money protection’ and an ‘independent redress’ scheme. If they are can’t prove this not only are they breaking the law, but chances are they are ‘rogue’ agents.
- CHECK who the landlord is and ask for their address; check this. Why? Because some people rent houses and then illegally sub-rent them to students. So be particularly careful if the landlord ‘lives in’.
Remember, CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score.
CreditLadder can improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments. CreditLadder is the first way to improve your credit score and position across all three of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money. CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.
Remember the content provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.