Students and landlords providing accommodation for more than 40,000 students in Bristol could find major changes to the way they rent or provide housing this summer, with the Government’s new Renters Rights Bill described as ‘a mess for students’.
There are fears the major changes to the way people rent homes, which give more rights to tenants, could impact the tens of thousands of Bristol students differently. There are fears of unintended knock on effects on everything from the length of time a student can live in one place to whether or not they can pay for their accommodation up front.
Experts from across the spectrum of views – from the National Union of Students to higher education experts to the student accommodation industry – have called for more thought to be put in to how to protect students with the new legislation, while also recognising the different circumstances students have.
With the Renters Rights Bill getting its second reading in the House of Lords today, Tuesday, February 4, time is running out to tweak the new law before it comes into force, and there are concerns it will radically change the landscape for a huge part of Bristol’s private rental and student let market.
The Renters Rights Bill makes many changes, but two fundamental ones affect the way student accommodation works. The first is to set a maximum amount of deposit and rent in advance that a private landlord can force a tenant to pay, before starting a tenancy.
This has been long-called for by tenants rights organisations, who point out that it makes it harder for people to rent, and to move into a new tenancy as many people simply don’t have the ability to find six months’ rent in advance.
But there are fears this could adversely affect students. Many student accommodation providers, particularly in purpose-built student accommodation (PBSAs) and private landlords who rent shared houses to students, routinely charge rent for the whole term or even the whole year up front and in advance, because students receive the money for their rent as a lump sum maintenance loan.
StuRents, effectively the Rightmove of student housing, has warned making students pay monthly instead of termly could be an issue for many students. Tom Walker, the co-founder of StuRents, said their research showed that less than 20 per cent of students in Bristol pay their rent monthly while the rest – more than four in five – pay termly or even yearly.
“Why does this matter? For many students, having to balance exceptionally low budgets, being able to use their maintenance loan to pay for their rent helps them immediately cover housing costs,” he said. “Uprooting termly rental payments under the new legislation would create a budgeting nightmare for many students who lack the additional support of ‘the bank of mum and dad’,” he added
The second issue that affects the student rent market differently is the Renters’ Rights Bill’s plans to end the practice of fixed-term tenancies. The PBSAs that are now commonplace in Bristol city centre, Temple Meads, Bedminster and Clifton are exempt from this part of the bill, but tens of thousands of students in Bristol still live in private shared housing, renting from landlords who get them to sign fixed contracts either from September to June, or 12-month ones.
This, according to James Maguire, at Housing Hand, the UK’s biggest rent guarantor service, the end of fixed term contracts has ‘thrown many landlords of student properties into turmoil’.
“When the Bill becomes law, students will be able to give two months’ notice at any point in their contract, for non-PBSA property types,” said James, the sales and business director at Housing Hand.
“Let’s say a student finishes their term in June. They could give notice in April to ensure their tenancy agreement also finishes in June. This means there will be two or three months with no rental income before the next academic year begins – an unsustainable situation for landlords,” he added.
Jim Dickinson, the associate editor for WonkHE, the online bible of the higher education sector, said: “The Renters’ Rights Bill is a mess for students. The Lords need to fix it.” Jim said that a workaround that might enable landlords of student properties to evict their student tenants every summer might cause knock on problems, predicting that March 1 would become a ‘huge housing scramble day’.
Jim also pointed out that the exemptions for the PBSA providers meant students in purpose-built accommodation will actually end up with fewer rights than those in private rented accommodation.
“The Bill excludes PBSAs from almost all of the new protections, including eviction safeguards, rent increase limits, and access to the new Ombudsman,” he said. “Although national codes exist, students in PBSA will have weaker rights compared to those in private houses.
“Frankly, no student should be advised to rent in halls rather than off-street housing in the future given the disparity in rights – almost certainly not something the government was intending. The Lords should extend the Bill’s protections to PBSA by abolishing exemptions in the Housing Act 1988 and requiring these providers to comply with assured tenancy rules,” he added.
“The student housing market is distinct. It has its own problems and requires its own solutions. Had there have been a proper student housing strategy, or even a minister willing to accept responsibility for it as a policy area, the volume of fixes now required could be lower,” he added.
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