FAQ's
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
When you’re getting organised with your student accommodation for the year ahead, there’s always lots of questions. We like to be organised too – so we rounded up on all the things we get asked a lot and noted them all down here for you. If there’s something else you need to know that we haven’t covered – just drop us a note or give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.
All of our properties will require a security deposit to be paid before we will allow you to sign a contract. This is a refundable sum of money taken at the start of your tenancy and we will protect it with a government-backed scheme called ‘My Deposits’.
The deposit is normally used at the end of your tenancy for any tenant negligence or rent arrears outstanding on the tenancy, but below is a more detailed list of what it can be used towards.
- Any damage that exceeds the normal limits of wear and tear
- Cleaning
- Lost keys and/or replacing locks
- Any waste or belongings left in the property
- Rent arrears
It is important to note that the tenant cannot choose what their deposit goes to and that you realise that rent and deposits are two separate entities. If you have damaged the property and/or have rent arrears and the deposit does not cover the costs, the landlord reserves the right to take you to court.
Rent – The tenants are all responsible equally for the rent, while you will be asked on each instalment to pay your share, if rent arrears occur, the landlord reserves the right to ask for any outstanding rent from the tenancy as a whole, irrespective of who has and has not paid.
Damage – You are jointly responsible for taking care of the property including communal areas.
Deposits – When you sign up with us, you will each be asked to pay a share of the total deposit for the tenancy, however, the deposit much like the tenancy is still considered as one. This means at the end of your tenancy, any damages to the house, irrespective of whose room the damage is in, or who cause the damage, will be deducted as a one charge to all relevant tenants.
Leaving a tenancy – It’s a good idea to discuss your plans with the other tenants if you want to leave your tenancy throughout the academic year, as your tenancy is joint and several, the remaining tenants will need to agree that they are happy for someone to take over your current tenancy. It’s all down to communication, as the remaining tenants do reserve the right to say no if they are not happy with the replacement tenant you have found.
In joint tenancies, the guarantee agreement will cover the whole rent and/or other liabilities under the tenancy. This means that if the tenant you are guaranteeing is in rent arrears, Uni2 rent and the landlord reserve the right to come to you as the guarantor. It also means that under the joint and several AST, we also reserve the right to come to you for any of the tenancies rent arrears. However, for any of our joint tenancies, all tenants on the AST will have a guarantor in place. Any tenant that does not will be asked to pay their rent in full before the tenants take possession of the property.
Most of our tenancy agreements are on a joint and severally liable basis. This is where all the tenants sign the same tenancy agreement and have equal responsibility for the tenancy. Under joint and several tenancies, all the tenants are treated together as ‘the tenant’.
We will not offer our contracts on any other basis unless already stated and we will not be able to amend or change our ASTs.
Our standard contract lengths are 50 weeks; however, these will differ depending on the landlord request and some of our tenancies are on a 51, 52 or 48 week lease. Before we rent out our properties, we discuss with the landlord what term they are looking for and also what we as their managing agents will need in order to turn around each property before the next lot of tenants.
As our contract lengths are already pre agreed, we will not be able to shorten them.
As we are a student only letting agent, all our contracts are fixed term ASTs. Put simply, this is an agreement between a tenant and a landlord for living in a rented property. The agreement exists to protect both the tenant and the landlord, as it arranges for a tenant to live in the property for a fixed length of time, after which time the landlord can either claim back possession of their property, renew the tenancy, or allow it to become a periodic tenancy.