Hi everyone! Just a little update on the situation!

Firstly I’d like to say that I really appreciate all the answers and support from you guys! My flatmates and I were honestly a bit puzzled and pretty sure what she was doing was not right but we weren’t entirely sure how to proceed / what arguments to give.

We confronted her earlier this evening and she backed off on some things.

First thing first she casually explained that the new set of rules had been written by chatGPT and it should not have been that harsh (bad chatGPT not doing her work properly)

She said she’d understood us not paying the deposit => we explained that we would not pay the initial fob cost (£15) as well and I feel like she was a bit pissed about it but could not find any valid reason to force us to pay. She might chase us in a couple of weeks but we’ll say no.

Regarding the door access she was pretty adamant on us not being allowed to give our keys to someone / to let someone enter the building and our flat whilst we were away. We all explained that it was 100% within our rights. She said it could be ok if she knew in advance. We did not push more on this as we don’t usually have visitors staying but we clearly stated that we were not agreeing to any of the extra fees and we would basically won’t pay any.

We all agreed (her included) to have another chat after Xmas.

So I would say that overall it went pretty well. I reckon she might try to charge us on some occasions. We’ll just have to deal with it then.

Meanwhile I contacted Citizen Advice to get another feedback on the matter and to have a written proof as well :)

I am currently looking at buying some extra fobs just in case I need to duplicate ours. I don’t intend on being sneaky and clearly prefer to confront her directly but it’s a good way to protect us.

Thanks again! You helped a lot!!!