Update: Withdrawn from uni, can't get out of tenancy

silvercar

I wish universities would start using their influence in this area. Looking for a property to rent and share for the following academic year should be actively discouraged until the January, that gives plenty of time for students to form friendship groups and landlords to let their property. Instead there is a frantic rush for people to sort out the following years groupings within days of arriving at university. Consequently people end up sharing with those that might not be as supportive as the friends they make in the first few weeks, by which time it is too late.

My kids made this mistake. Seeing an urgency to sort things out which led to not ideal groupings due to the pressure to sort the people and the house for the following year.  They only accepted they were wrong when they decided to do extend their stay in the university by doing a masters and found that in June it was perfectly possible to find decent rentals and people to share with. Universities could help by refusing to give accredited landlord status to those landlords or estate agents that start the process before an agreed date.

Sapindus

HampshireH said:

Your son needs to do more.

Get his room advertised in the student union. Put it on the notice board. Use Facebook or Snapchat or whatever they are using to advertise it to people who will see it as a student there. Get his friends sharing it to their friends etc

Sadly if he can't then it will be a big life lesson and an expensive mistake. But there are always kids needing rooms

I was scoffed at when I suggested there must be a noticeboard somewhere.  We have however phoned the uni who pointed us to a facebook group so he's posted on there, and the SpareRoom ad has been approved now.  He didn't make any friends so that's a non-starter.

Sapindus

We are still paying rent for a room that is presumably standing empty. He's had people reply to his ads but he never hears anything more when he passes them on to the halls company. Of course, if the company have a room they haven't managed to let, why would they let somebody take over an existing tenancy when they could get paid for TWO lots of rent instead? For all we know, the room HAS been re-let and we would never know unless we called their bluff and said actually he'd like to move in now.

And it's not just students that get caught in this kind of "important life lesson" as someone described it earlier. This on the news today: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgykp79ezyo sound familiar? Company builds new flats while existing flats stand empty but they're getting the ground rent so who cares! Housing crisis?

HampshireH

I'd def be asking to inspect the room I'm paying

silvercar

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81872693#Comment_81872693

The way to test this would be to phone up and enquire if there are any rooms available now. If there are rooms, further push by saying you have a friend on X corridor and ask if there is anything nearby? Just see how far into the conversation you need to go before the actual room is mentioned.