Making a difference on student housing
What to do about the student movement's most intractable issue, now the Renters' Rights Act is in force.
Recording coming soon
Hosted by
Jim Dickinson
Associate Editor (SUs), Wonkhe
We get behind the OfS's 87% satisfaction headline to what students actually report on quality, affordability and who carries the burden, and get on top of the Renters' Rights Act now Phase 1 is live – what changed on 1 May, the student carve-outs, and who got left out. We navigate the patchwork of rights, codes and Awaab's law, and turn the White Paper's statement of expectations into a local housing strategy, with worked examples from Nottingham and Manchester.
In this session
What we cover
- Behind the 87% – the quality issues most first years report, from damp and mould to missing smoke alarms and inaccurate pre-signing information.
- The unequal burden – first-in-family, disabled, Black and white students' very different experiences of cost, quality and fairness.
- The Renters' Rights Act – rolling tenancies, the end of Section 21, capped upfront rent, banned bidding wars, and the information sheet most students never got.
- The carve-outs – Ground 4A summer evictions from student HMOs, PBSA exemptions, and this summer's two-months'-notice trap.
- Five tiers of rights – halls, PBSA, student HMO, house or flat, and lodgers, each with different protections.
- Who loses – independent and estranged students, one and two-bed lets, and the homelessness pipeline.
- Guarantors – the cap on upfront rent, unregulated guarantor insurance, and asking the university to stand as guarantor.
- Awaab's law and the codes – strict repair timescales for the private sector, but not halls or PBSA, and three different codes of practice.
- From guidance to expectation – the White Paper's statement, NPPF paragraph 63, and making the UUK guidance effectively mandatory.
- The local playbook – Nottingham's Student Living Strategy, Manchester's Good Landlord Charter, and the tribunal routes that win rent back.