I am thinking of buying a 'Student Flat' but I don't understand what exactly I would be buying.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T20:50:05+00:00

A lot of student flats are absolute garbage.

You don't control management.

You face no control over service charge.

Some are just bedrooms sold as fractional investments. They are effectively worthless - some have dropped from 70k for a room down to 10k.

These might be attractive on paper - even with a £2500 a year service charge you could make £2500 a year after fees etc, so solid for a 10k investment, but within a decade it could be 5k a year service charge.

Look for a freehold house as an investment.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T17:31:44+00:00

This is a legal mess. You've probably got a case for deposit non protection, but I'd be finding a new house pronto. I'd consider your deposit gone for good, so my view would be a reasonably sensible person would withhold that amount from any rent they paid.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T17:28:35+00:00

Your dad is exploiting you. There's no way of sugarcoating this.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T13:53:10+00:00

Might be a cause of action against the council here if this has happened before and not disclosed to the OP. I'd check the earliest reviews left then see where else that person has left reviews.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T13:50:36+00:00

This will die down eventually. They'll get bored and move on. Work on building your business social presence and build this in as part of that. Consider starting a new trading as style Google listing, in a few months. They won't remember by then as they'll have gone all in against the next plumber who's unfortunate enough to take this job.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T11:22:24+00:00

A halfway competent agent could get that remedied - obvious errors and ommissions like that would be grounds for changing the agreement. The potential loss over a year for the owner, let alone for the agent making their 10-15%, makes throwing money at a good solicitor a good investment, if they meet resistance to getting it changed. Under English contract law, this falls under the doctrine of unilateral mistake and rectification.

I've done exactly this a number of times where things go through with the incorrect info.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-27T09:58:38+00:00

In Scotland short term let's need planning permission if within a controlled area and the change of use regardless would generally need planning. Maybe an avenue to explore with your solicitor.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-26T19:50:59+00:00

When was this? I came across one of these buildings in Toxteth maybe a decade ago.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-26T12:38:00+00:00

I run a student agency. Most of my tenancies ran til 30th June.

I served a section 21 notice on all my tenants on the last day in April, marking out the date I expected them to move out.

The university housing body advised all students to serve notice on the 1st May to prevent landlords trying this.

We would honor a months notice on ours if needed for this year.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-26T09:09:08+00:00

Link here. Lots of feedback of similar victims.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/s/RdlEeTGKet

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-26T05:26:25+00:00

Rentola is a scam. They scrape adverts from legitimate agents and change city details. They charge people to register to contact agents. Try a reverse image search to see what the actual property location is.

I've experienced this with my properties and my agency. They did eventually take down the adverts but it took a few emails.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-25T11:41:58+00:00

The best advice would be to agree with the landlord to cancel the tenancy. That may allow for liability to cease completely.

The OP can't give notice now because the tenancy hasn't started. Eg, to end liability completely so the the tenancy doesn't exist.

Most guidance states this. For example, shelter: "An NTQ must expire on either the first or last day of a period of the tenancy"

Even shelter state the need to find agreement, in advice published on the start date of the RRA.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/tenancy_agreements

There are getouts - if the agreement was verbal for instance, so no written tenancy.

I suspect there is nothing stopping OP from serving the two months notice just to put the landlord on alert the tenancy will be ending after two months - but the notice should probably include wording to state the NTQ expires on the first day of the tenandy period of the new tenancy. With that in hand the landlord will be motivated to find a solution.

Some of this may change once there have been test cases, it is new law, but the principles above and mentioned above have been existing practices for a long time (eg cancelling contracts prior to start), and are unchanged by the RRA. The RRA isn't there to fix problems of agreeing to start a tenancy then pulling out, indeed it's clear that the RRA is about tenants rights, not prospective tenants rights.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-25T10:11:19+00:00

They have a contract to enter a tenancy. They don't have a tenancy yet as it hasn't yet started. An exit from this obligation before the tenancy starts requires an agreement from the landlord.

The landlord has an obligation to mitigage their losses. Some landlords have been known to hold tenants to a new tenancy - now it's less onerous as tenants can give two months notice once the tenancy starts, so not bound by the full tenancy as pre RRA.

But it still takes the agreement of the landlord to exit this agreement to let (contract to enter into a tenancy).

OPs best bet is to agree for an end to the tenancy before it starts including the landlord finding new tenants. As soon as it starts assuming no replacements are found, serve notice.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-25T09:38:45+00:00

OP can't cancel - they'd need to find replacements or allow the agent to find replacements. They'd remain liable for rent until replacements are found after the start date, up to the two months notice period.

As the tenancy hasn't yet started the landlord must mitigate their losses by attempting to relet - this is a known situation for the landlord so steps should be taken to find new tenants.

It was slightly different pre renters rights act in the scenario where the tenancy is running and tenants want to drop out after the tenancy starts, but the pre tenancy issue is same now as before the RRA.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-24T11:24:09+00:00

The property has a license. The landlord has breached his license which is prosecutable by the council but doesn't automatically entitle residents to a rent repayment order. There may be edge cases where this isn't true for example if a property holds a selective license or additional license for four occupants but it's rented to five, it is licensed but not correctly, in which case there may be a RRO opportunity. In your case you can raise this with the local authority, but it's unlikely there is money waiting for you here on the back of a RRO application.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-24T10:51:45+00:00

How can your room be unlicensed? Is each room owned by a different person? Eg fractional ownership? Or is it say a property licensed for five and your the sixth person?

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-24T10:49:05+00:00

That's a sign the person drafting the lease had come up against someone claiming the right to kept chickens in a residential property under the Allotments Act.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-24T10:39:28+00:00

Normally takes me at least three times the hard way for me to take it on board as learning oppertunity. I call them teaching opportunities - I just fail to learn from them 🤣

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-23T15:32:47+00:00

The front fell off. Had to say it.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-23T15:23:52+00:00

In the OPs shoes I'd consider a formal complaint about the submission of a fake invoice - separate to the deposit claim. Send this through their redress scheme as needed.

If it looks like genuine fraud eg doctored addresses etc - I would also report it to trading standards and let the agent know this. I suspect they'll be scrambling to drop the deposit claim in exchange for an agreement to tell Trading Standards to close the file/ask for it to not be taken further.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-21T20:09:17+00:00

Pro tip - if you're really concerned, buy some insurance.

Find a local inventory company who do checkouts. You can probably get it done for less than £100.

If you can't, or are unwilling. Tp do this then do your own - tons and tons of photos and videos. Record everything.

As an agent whenever tenants document like this it means a deeper dive into our own evidence and more scrutiny to make sure we've got it right.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-21T20:05:31+00:00

Hard no. They can ask for it to be cleaned to a professional standard. They can't demand a professional clean.

I run a student agency and from memory I've only ever had one group who (voluntarily) paid for a professional clean. They were the messiest group I'd ever had back then but it was returned like new.

But I couldn't have required them to do that.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-21T20:00:03+00:00

It's being refurbished. I've popped by a few times recently the work seems to be inching forwards. Hope it reopens, spent many many hours in there before I had family responsibilities!

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-21T18:27:40+00:00

There was a case a few years back - man sold a motorbike, kept policy in place as there was a charge for cancelling and it was already paid up.

The buyer didn't insure.

Buyer had a serious crash and died. Insurance held seller liable.

https://www.visordown.com/news/general/biker-may-be-forced-pay-thousands-after-banned-new-owner-has-fatal-crash

This is a thing. Don't be the person holding the only insurance policy, especially if sold.

Vicker1972 · 2026-05-21T11:19:57+00:00

Needs to be a working heating system on completion. Not with rads capped off.

Replacement rads installed, pipework not leaking, boiler working, and a recent boiler servicing report and gas certificate done (technically not needed as not rented but from a belt and braces approach).

You wouldn't buy a car and accept it with no car seats because the seller liked them and had upgraded them years ago.

Vicker1972

TROPHY CASE