Too much rent?

C

colin79ie

Registered User
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I am a student and renting a house near the college. Basically, I am being charged the following rent:

charged €1620 for 18 weeks 'first term' until 31st december 07
€1620 for 18 weeks 'term 2' from 01st Jan 08
€720 for 8 weeks 'term 3' until mid june.

I moved into the house on 16th september 07. If added up, 44 weeks goes into mid july. I will be finished end may/early june.

Is it legal for a landlord to take all this rent money for time when I am not there? Cannot see anything in the letting agreement.

Where can I find information about this subject?
 
Ar e you paying the rent all up front ??? Thats mad ! If you cant trust your self with the cash give it to some one who can mnd it for you !

You normally only pay rent weekly or monthly in arrears. ie 1 month upfront and then pay every month.

If you are going to be gone out of the place at a certain period in the future all normally you would do is give a months notice of this date and leave.

Your SU is the best place for face to face direct advice on this, you can ask all the Qs you want and get immediate answers.

Also talk to www.threshold.ie

I assume by the sound of it you are stayig in a student specific accomodation and being screwed by paying all up front !

.
 
I have paid for term 1 and 2 but I am not going to pay for term 3.

Just want to have my facts straight before I challenge the landlord on it.

Thanks
 
You should go to your Student Union immediately with your tenancy agreement (if you have been given one) and if possible a written invoice from your landlord containing the peculiar arrangement that seems to be imposed in your case.

It is an extraordinary demand. As the above posted says, landlords do not have the right (or the gall!!!!) to charge by academic term. Given the tight finances of most students this would make it impossible to budget. If you haven't already paid the first tranch, dont. Tell your landlord you need to get advice. Don't be bullied or treated like an irresponsible child. All the best with it.
 
Marie said:
As the above posted says, landlords do not have the right (or the gall!!!!) to charge by academic term.
Click to expand...

Im a student too... the situation is similar in my college... there are several blocks of campus accomodation along wih two large private blocks off campus... in all cases payment is made in two large payments (term 1 and 2)... there is no choice in the matter... that's it. All three landlords have this policy...

In addition the largest of the three landlords operate very regular notified room inspections and enforce fines for absurd trivialities! (fines for posters, for not having enough demestos in toliet on inspection date, for not having cooker scrubbed well enough...)
 
You could just stay there until july?
or
Live off campus and pay rent monthly.
 
This all sounds like an interesting racket which seems to be increasing as rental sector pushes out students due to increasing costs.

The Unis are complicit in this as they either, sub out the running of college accom to managing agents or put private providers on "preferred" lists.

If I was still in Uni I think I would start kicking up about this from SU to the press. Its definitley worth a few headlines and is desperately unfair. Im sure it is extremely common practice and the OP will find many of their gruevance to suppoprt
.
I know I was on several student marches while in Uni for various issues, I wonder are student bothered anymore about being screwed, we have becomne increasingly tolerant about things like this due to apathy and increased accesibility to cash....

My Bro got robbed in Liverpool similarly by his Uni....for what transpired on arrival as a dump of the highest order on campus!

Raise this to the SU and their will be so much support for it you can be sure! Anything to skip classes and march for student rights :)
 
Niallers said:
You could just stay there until july?
or
Live off campus and pay rent monthly.
Click to expand...

Unlikely the OP will want to spend half her summer on campus.

You can go to the S.U with this but they don't have half as much power as they like to think they do.

Why didn't you notice this when you first moved in?
 
monkeyboy said:
If I was still in Uni I think I would start kicking up about this from SU to the press. Its definitley worth a few headlines and is desperately unfair. Im sure it is extremely common practice and the OP will find many of their gruevance to suppoprt
Click to expand...

SU's seem to have very little real power these days... the OP's issue is one of many issues that exist.

In my uni, last year a campaign was run to highlight the lack of affordability of food on campus (just under €6 for a basic sandwich) where a single operator runs all the restaurants and the only alternative is an overpriced understocked spar... for God's sake, since when should the only choice for coffee be between a starbucks (owned by a monopoly) and the monopoly's own cafes!!

After much effort by the SU and a boycott... this year nothing has changed... and to make matters worse it has transpired that the president of the uni sits on the board of the firm with the outsourced cathering contract!!!

Unis are run to attract research money and prestige... undergraduates stopped mattering a long time ago... all we want is affordability (Spar, Starbucks, Luxury Paninis!!! how can we afford these things!)

To get back to the OP's point... even the college owned accomodation operates these up front contracts... althought, thankfully in our case, they don't extend quite that far into the summer...
 
On campus accommodation is rented out at even higher rates during the summer to exchange students etc doing work in the Uni during the summer. It does seem to be a bit of a racket.
 
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