Help my friend please.

McKneff

Copied and pasted

Advice needed - from someone in the know. My daughter attended University for a fortnight. Two weeks. She now attends xxxx. She was so desperately unhappy that I worried for her state of mental health. We transferred her to xxxx and she currently lives at home. Xxxxa university charged her only £30 for the lectures she did not attend. That’s fine. Unite Students however are charging her for her accommodation for the whole year. Not a month. Not a term - which I would baulk at, but accept. The year. £6660. For a two week stay. What can we do? Today I heard from our MP advising legal counsel but doubting there was anything we could do. Two weeks. £6660. Can some property lawyer please help us. We are tej teachers whose daughter struggles away from home. Had she been ill they would’ve waived the fees. The fact that I doubted for her mental health seems to mean nothing. She was SO unhappy. I can barely talk about it. Can someone help us. We have already paid over £2k for a room she lived in for 14 days. Do we really have to pay £4500 more?

Any advice pleaze

silvercar

you or your daughter need to advertise the room and get someone to take over her contract. If you can find someone to take over then you will only need to pay for the time until then.

It should be possible to find someone for next term. Try looking on the student room website. It's good for advertising the room and also for ideas on where to advertise for your particular area.

[Deleted User]

Yes she probably does have to pay it. She should check her contract and perhaps get advice from citizens advice if it’s hard to understand. Though it would be normal to be tied in for the full year.

warby68

Whilst she/the parents will probably be contracted for the full year, I would be very surprised if the university she left wasn't able to offer some help in explaining how to mitigate the cost by reletting the room to another student, especially in the circumstances.

The post from the friend is extremely stressed so perhaps they haven't been able to negotiate calmly as yet directly with the accommodation provider. Perhaps someone could make further enquiries for them to see what's possible. I'm sure there are many new students who drop out for many reasons and whilst it might take a bit of digging I'd expect there to be some hope of a solution even if it only partially offsets the costs.

agrinnall

If you take out all the irrelevant mental health stuff this is a tenancy agreement question which would get more (and possibly more knowledgeable) answers on the Housing board.

Starrystarrynight1

Have you thought about having your daughter speak to her GP? Maybe, if the GP can see that her mental health was suffering, he could provide a letter to the accommodation provider.