Help Poor Students!

RudeYute

No, I'm not asking for donations, but if you want to help a poor student pay off debts, then you're more than welcome, my nochex and paypal are always open, lol.

Ok, let me explain. Basically, students who live in Halls of Residence, usually have the option to only live their during their term time... which is at maximum, 40 weeks.

Now, Unite Plc, who have many locations around the country, decide they want to rip students off, and only allow the option of 51 weeks, on top of what is already expensive accomodation.... our main arguement is its expensive, but also the fact that students dont need accomodation for a full year, so how can they call themselves student residences.

Atm, all we have done is a petition (link below) and contacted others around the country who it involves, and a couple of local radio stations... we're thinking bout the next step, but not too sure where to go.

But if you guys agree with the petition, then pls sign, and if you don't have any view, just do it to help out a fellow shacker.biggrin.gif

http://www.petitiononline.com/heights/

Amba_Gambla

so what's wrong with renting a private house/flat or staying in uni HOR where you can get 40 week rents???

Live within your means and all that.....??

Sorry, don't want to sound unsympathetic, but I paid £45/wk for a sh*tty house with people I didn't particularly like while I was at uni - that was something like 40wk rent.

If you want the nicer properties, then you're going to have to pay a premium for them, that's the way the world goes unfortunately...

RudeYute

I haven't got a problem with living in a house, but I'd like the convenience of being close enough to uni.

The arguement isn't about the weekly rent, it's more about having to pay 51 weeks rent when we only live there for 40.

There's no houses or Halls of residence around here, as it's city centre location.

jennifernil

How much do you pay per week or month? My daughter , who is a student, owns a really nice modern flat in Glasgow only 5 minutes walk from Uni and rents out a good size bedroom for £280 per month plus bills ( approx another £50). This is not cheap, but neither is it expensive. Her 3 friends across the street pay £520 pcm for a really grotty flat with 3 bedrooms and no lounge. They spend a lot of time over in her flat. Her tenant pays 12 months per year if he wants to keep the room ( he also shares a good lounge, fully equipped kitchen, bathroom and additional toilet). This is normal procedure here. All Uni accommodation is done on a yearly basis here. What are landlords/University supposed to do when students are on holiday? Things still have to be paid for. Owning property and maintaining it to a good standard is not cheap.

RudeYute

Currently, about £92 per week, plus other extras like internet £5 pw. At 40 weeks, thats expensive, but acceptable for what it is.... but at 51 weeks, its a disgrace + they want to charge £250 per student per year for electricity.... total cost being about £5,000 per year... my student loan is £3000, of which £1250 goes on Tution fees alone.

Most halls of residence, in fact all I know of have the option of 40 weeks, until now, where Unite plan on changing to 51 weeks only.

Normally, during summer, the halls are rented to foreign students who don't go home or similar.

Amba_Gambla

My uni was very close to teh city centre. We lived about 4/5 miles out of the city centre and got a 20min bus in every day. - bus pass cost us £60/term, but it saved us tonnes on rent...... again we go back to convenience.

University HOR are partly subsidised, so can afford to only do 40wk rents, Unite is a business, and want to milk all they can out of their customers. Vote with your feet (or beds) and move out. when they have no customers, they'll reduce their rent.

crazy_guy

Take your money else where, went with Unite in manchester and they are c*ap beyond belief. They love trying to rip off students, i had to threaten them with court to get my deposit back oh and we had a leaky ceiling for 2 months.

Not worth the hassle

melancholly

I read the petition - it does sounds very frustrating that UNITE are shifting the goal posts with weeks to rent and bills being or not being included. I'm surprised that your student NUS rep isn't taking it on, because they should be able to have contacts with all other unis to make it a much bigger campain?

The other thing to say is that you pay for convenience! As an undergrad, I never had an on-suite room (not offered!) and didn't really notice it as a problem. There's now a move to make every HOR up to some ridiculoulsy high standard, thereby making them very expensive. If you want to live cheaply, you won't manage to be very centrally located - that's the way it goes!

University owned HOR are also often rented out in the holidays for conference guests and tourists (london unis are a great source of cheap accommodation in the summer!) so they can allow 40 week occupancy. UNITE does not provide a university owned HOR, it is a private business so is about making profits primarily, NOT providing for students as a first aim. I don't know how successful your petition will be - i think a boycott would be more effective because that would immediately hit them where it hurts. Good luck - but I see this as an uphill struggle for you!

fran_from_willesden

I agree with Amba, live within your means and sometimes that means compromising as well. By wanting somewhere close to uni and choosing to pay the charges UNITE have, you can't really complain at how expensive they are. In my final year, I paid £35 a week rent incl water and £60 a term for my bus pass. Calculate that and I paid far less then you are now and was only 20 minutes from uni and town centre.

You also say that students don't need residence all year round....that's not true. Postgrads need to stay for the whole year and I know that sometimes they live in UNITE accommodation. The only reason I went home every summer from uni was because it was easier for me to get a job at home then it was in Liverpool where I went to uni. If I could have got a job, I would have quite happily stayed for the holidays.

Volcano

Students at my uni pay for a full 52 weeks for private housing, standard procedure around here.

nabiha87

i find it unfair too

i live in unite accommodation in the city centre and LOVE it!
you get what you pay for as bills are included, interet is cheap, and i have my own bathroom

the flat is so close to everything but so expensive. i dont mind paying about £83 a week when i'm actually here but next year the 51 week contract scam is crazy

i'll sign your petition