Student Hall's Fee's been Charged an entire term, only stayed 1 week and left due to COVID

[Deleted User]

In fairness it was your decision to leave so you have chose to go home. The contract will still need fulfilling. 

gary83

JamoLew said:

Anamox said:

You won't get any sympathy here, the forum dinosaurs exhibited above would be insisting your parents have to pay for the term if you turned up to uni and died on day 2. 

This happens all of the time and as a student ambassador for a certain field of study in the UK I often hear of this on other forums, of those who update us it seems fairly half and half who gets anywhere with waiving the charges. The contracts are often weak and leave plenty of leeway for you to exit without penalty if you're crafty. A common one is ill health, does your contract state anything about what happens if you are too ill to attend uni? If so, I'm aware people use their mental health (genuinely and not) to get out on this clause. 

The most common way to find yourself no longer owing them money is if your old room can be re-let and occupied fairly quickly. I'm not sure how busy it was at uni when you arrived but presumably, like every year, there were people who wanted halls but didn't get in - they can now hopefully take on your room and take on the payments. That said, can you post anywhere online or do you have any contacts there to see if you can find someone interested in getting into halls (assuming they're full, which I don't know during COVID) and liaise with them/halls to get them into your room?

some valid points - BUT teaching our youngsters to use something as serious as mental health to try and avoid their legal responsibilities is not one of the life lessons that they should be learning
Taking responsibility for their actions and decisions should be - after all, they keep saying they want to be treated as adults (or is it only when it suits?)

Agreed, I’ll quite happily be labelled a dinosaur if that means that basically I’ve learned to expect my actions to have consequences, that’s just part of life. if we could all just wriggle out of of legal contracts “if we’re crafty” or “use our mental health whether genuinely or not” to escape our obligations then society would be much worse off. Apart from anything else using mental health is a pretty disgusting excuse if you don’t have any problems. you’ll make it much harder in the future to expect any dispensation, empathy, or leniency for those that are genuinely suffering, that might be you or anybody else who won’t get the support they need, it’s the boy who cried wolf scenario.

How will the students of today feel if in future a company is “crafty“ and ignores their contractual obligations? How would they feel if their parents were renting and they get illegally evicted from the family home? Would they expect those contracts to be honoured? If they were renting a private house or flat because they’d decided not to go to uni would they expect to be able to move out with none of the consequences that they agreed to when they signed the contract because they decided that house or flat “wasn’t for them”

Marvel1

tooldle said:

To be fair to the OP she has come to Wales from England. In Wales our social distancing is 2m rather than the 1m+ in England. 

Then you look up the rules regarding the country.  Before Wales went face masks in shops, I had to go to England, read up on rules and one was face masks in shops, so bought one ready.

SingleSue

gary83 said:

JamoLew said:

Anamox said:

You won't get any sympathy here, the forum dinosaurs exhibited above would be insisting your parents have to pay for the term if you turned up to uni and died on day 2. 

This happens all of the time and as a student ambassador for a certain field of study in the UK I often hear of this on other forums, of those who update us it seems fairly half and half who gets anywhere with waiving the charges. The contracts are often weak and leave plenty of leeway for you to exit without penalty if you're crafty. A common one is ill health, does your contract state anything about what happens if you are too ill to attend uni? If so, I'm aware people use their mental health (genuinely and not) to get out on this clause. 

The most common way to find yourself no longer owing them money is if your old room can be re-let and occupied fairly quickly. I'm not sure how busy it was at uni when you arrived but presumably, like every year, there were people who wanted halls but didn't get in - they can now hopefully take on your room and take on the payments. That said, can you post anywhere online or do you have any contacts there to see if you can find someone interested in getting into halls (assuming they're full, which I don't know during COVID) and liaise with them/halls to get them into your room?

some valid points - BUT teaching our youngsters to use something as serious as mental health to try and avoid their legal responsibilities is not one of the life lessons that they should be learning
Taking responsibility for their actions and decisions should be - after all, they keep saying they want to be treated as adults (or is it only when it suits?)

Agreed, I’ll quite happily be labelled a dinosaur if that means that basically I’ve learned to expect my actions to have consequences, that’s just part of life. if we could all just wriggle out of of legal contracts “if we’re crafty” or “use our mental health whether genuinely or not” to escape our obligations then society would be much worse off. Apart from anything else using mental health is a pretty disgusting excuse if you don’t have any problems. you’ll make it much harder in the future to expect any dispensation, empathy, or leniency for those that are genuinely suffering, that might be you or anybody else who won’t get the support they need, it’s the boy who cried wolf scenario.

How will the students of today feel if in future a company is “crafty“ and ignores their contractual obligations? How would they feel if their parents were renting and they get illegally evicted from the family home? Would they expect those contracts to be honoured? If they were renting a private house or flat because they’d decided not to go to uni would they expect to be able to move out with none of the consequences that they agreed to when they signed the contract because they decided that house or flat “wasn’t for them”

Or they ruin it for students who are genuinely suffering from mental health issues or other health issues that put them at risk from Covid.

Youngest is clinically extremely vulnerable, we knew the contract he had signed for university run halls for this uni year was valid and accepted that but fortunately after various discussions, they have allowed him to transfer from a 11 person apartment with shared communal facilities to a self contained studio apartment with no communal facilities to try to mitigate the risks to him. He's not a new student though (fourth year integrated Masters student) and he had more than a taster of being locked down in halls as he had to shield in halls from March to July last semester, initially in just his room with no access to the kitchen as other students were still present but after a few weeks, as the lone occupant. 

Had they not, he knew and accepted he was still obliged to pay for at least this semester's fee for halls even if he didn't take up the offer and spent the first semester studying from home.

superbigal

Some Unis can be kinder than others.  my local is St Andrews

Since the start of semester, I know that a small number of you have asked to go home and give up your accommodation contracts. Although those numbers are small – fewer than 25 requests to date – we do not want financial considerations to get in the way of a need to go home. For that reason, we are foregoing the clause in your accommodation contracts which requires you to give 28 days’ notice to leave. If you wish to leave, you can do so whenever you want, and you will only be billed for the period you have spent in halls.

And if you decide that St Andrews is really not for you and want to withdraw definitively from your studies with us, you may do so without being liable for course fees, until 1 December 2020.

Dr_Crypto

I’d guess that far fewer people drop out of St Andrews than USW. I read that in some unis dropout rates last year were well into double figures, while others had only a few %. 

Nebulous2

St Andrews came in for a huge amount of criticism for forcing everyone to sign up for accommodation, and then after the deadline had passed announcing that the whole first semester’s tuition would be online. Rowing back on that may have been necessary in the face of the publicity they received. 

Universities, like everybody else are trying their best to innovate and protect their core business at this time. Unfortunately innovating demands squeezing more money out of students. 

bluecarlady

sebslee123 did you ever get a satisfactory resolution to this situation from the University of SOuth Wales?

poppy12345

bluecarlady said:

sebslee123 did you ever get a satisfactory resolution to this situation from the University of SOuth Wales?

OP hasn't been active since mid January so you may not get a reply.

DCFC79

bluecarlady said:

sebslee123 did you ever get a satisfactory resolution to this situation from the University of SOuth Wales?

Should really start your own thread.