House of Horrors: Rise of the Invisible Landlord
Time at university is to be enjoyed; to be made as smooth and as comfortable of a process as possible, yet thousands of students are facing horrendous housing conditions that are affecting their ability to study, sleep and quite frankly live properly.
The private housing sector is now a breeding ground for fraud and negligence; forcing unsuspecting students into poor, rundown accommodation. Over the course of the past decade, it has increasingly become more and more common for landlords and letting agents based in student areas to prey on the naivety of first-time renters; capitalising from those who have little-to-no experience dealing with finances or living independently.
It is a crisis that is vastly overlooked; if not swept under the carpet completely by the government and local councils. With limited media coverage and no real intervention from ministers, it is clear that there has been very little attempt to combat this issue. Young people of today are the future of this country, yet they are continually being taken advantage of due to an absence of care and regulation, much of which is very rarely enforced.
After a comfortable first year spent in halls, the vast majority of students must move on to find new homes; ones that are often scattered with mould, water damage and even rodents. It remains a stereotype that young people attending university must expect to live in squalor; a belief that has manifested into a frightening norm for many. This is nothing more than a myth; a dupe created by landlords to exploit and control tenants. No one should have to live in an environment that may make them physically and mentally ill, and the reality is that students do not create these environments – they are handed to them in that state. Such conditions create deeper struggles with mental health and therefore a lack of motivation in maintaining the property, causing it to deteriorate even further over time.
The Nation Union of Students (NUS) reported that over half of students live in properties with condensation and mould, and over a quarter with vermin – from lice and slugs to rat infestations. With parents and guardians out of sight and seemingly far off into the horizon; there is a growing sense amongst landlords that they are untouchable by local authorities. There is a seething undercurrent below the surface; an unspoken fear that life will be made more difficult for tenants if they voice any concerns that they feel is in breach of their basic tenancy rights.
After experiencing my own fair share of grievances during my uni years and speaking with others around the country, it is explicit that these are not emerging trends, but merely part of a wider issue that has been ongoing for decades. Reports of student rental fraud in England and Wales shot up between 2014 and 2015; leaping from 2,216 to 3,193. A drastic increase within a single year – and it appears to only be getting worse.
Enough of us are familiar with these horror stories; tales of out-of-date smoke alarms, jungle-like gardens, shards of broken glass on walls claiming to be mirrors, leaking ceilings left unfixed for months on end and damaged plumbing held together with duct tape. Not only are these major health and safety breaches; they are also – in the simplest of terms – completely illegal.
Far too often, all maintenance and welfare responsibilities are left to student letting agents; a symptom of absentee landlordism. Demanding all damage and security deposits to be paid in cash, discriminating against male students and overcharging them for rent on the basis that they are “messy” and holding students’ security deposits hostage after their tenancy has ended for months at a time – all to generate and pocket a large chunk of interest. These are just a handful of examples of countless incidences of fraud and tax evasion.
After speaking with recent graduates from around the country, there are eerie similarities in patterns of mistreatment and harassment. Freyja from the University of Reading was told that there was nothing that could be done to help with the condition of her house:
“Let’s just say there was definitely fraudulent behaviour, my room was basically uninhabitable. My room had a huge hole in the ceiling and there was black all over the walls. When I went back after Christmas, tonnes of my stuff was ruined.”
She claims a particular estate agents in Reading pleaded with new tenants – urging them to leave positive reviews in order to improve their reputation:
“When they show you the houses they act really nice, then get you to write a review for them because it “helps business”, so people mistakenly write good reviews. It all changes once you’ve handed over your deposit.”
Luckily it has become easier to spot scams and misleading ads online if you know what to look for – especially if hundreds of negative, scathing reviews are buried beneath fake five star ones.
Melsa from the University of Southampton dealt first-hand with the nightmares of an invisible landlord. After moving in during October of 2018, she had rain leaking heavily through her bedroom in multiple different areas. She said:
“My landlord said he would fix it in January. Nothing happened. He says May, then still nothing happened. Then one morning in June, we woke up with scaffolding around our house, but workers didn’t show up until two weeks later. It stayed like that until the following October. We reported him to the council, and his response was to yell and berate us.”
Student landlords earn obscene amounts of money from properties every month with very little involvement, all with the intent of modelling and letting it to that specific group; a group that is now a mainstream asset and attracts a plethora of international investors each year. It may be that students are in need of a single body agency, one that employs representatives of the university, local authorities and the government and can properly implement regular inspections.
Universities compiling lists of trusted and legitimate agents that they approve of could also be a great incentive for landlords to get their act together. Emily from the University of Reading thinks that every university should have a “uni-approved” list of letting agents:
“My friend at Brunel University said they have an approved list. It was great because landlords were terrified of being kicked off of it, so they would always be willing to come round and help us out.”
Changing demographics and a heightened desire to attend university has evolved student accommodation into a sought-after market. Due to campus housing shortages and huge demand, developers have no other choice than to build elsewhere; where local residents and communities must succumb to urban regeneration. Inevitably, some accommodation must be built in less attractive areas.
There is an alarming imbalance in the quality of housing available; particularly amongst advanced economies like that of the UK. High-end glossy apartments reserved for the wealthiest on campus silhouette the skyline; luxurious high rise complexes overlook a swathe of unsafe properties below where students often fall victim to violent muggings and burglaries; contributing to rising crime rates. Being part of the private Facebook group “Women Walking Home” was a life-line for young women, including myself, in the Reading student area. It remains an outreach for women who no longer feel safe walking to their afternoon classes; let alone from night clubs in the early hours of the morning.
Student housing has been always been viewed as an equal playing field; shielded from scrutiny, and therefore allowing this behaviour to fester in our communities for far too long. One thing is for certain, change is needed – and it is needed now.
With COVID-19 and its customs embroidered into our society for the foreseeable future; further lockdowns looming, and the beginning of an economic collapse – how will the student housing market survive? Experts argue that student housing is pretty much recession-proof – when an economy loses jobs, it tends to gain students. This may no longer be the case. Learning from home may become a stark reality for universities and investors.
Now that a second wave has arrived, young people are being treated as cannon fodder; thrown blindly into the eye of the storm in the hope that they will survive the virus, without taking into account the possibility of developing long-term health risks.
From the start of the autumn term, students in Scotland and high-risk areas in England were ordered to self-isolate in their campus accommodation; all squeezed into rooms the size of prison cells. Lectures and seminars can easily be taught from the comfort of student’s own homes via online classes, yet universities across the country still agreed to open their doors. Students were denied the right to return home within days of arriving, underlining universities’ main concern – securing rental income.
With rumours circulating of students having to self-isolate in dorms until as late as Christmas, many have begun to reconsider the annual cost of their education and whether it should be reduced during such uncertain times. To charge over £9,000 a year for a degree that is half the quality of what it typically is; with very little interaction nor valuable educational resources available is simply not feasible.
A large amount of accommodation providers agreed to waive or cut certain fees, whilst others refused to release students from their contracts and rent obligations. Earlier this May students from Portsmouth, Bristol and other cities around the UK decided to go on rent strike due to the impact of the pandemic. Should students – or anyone for that matter – continue to pay rent for accommodation that they are no longer using?
So where are we now? Here’s what you can do:
It is important to know your rights – and to act quickly. Always view the property in person. Gather research on your letting agents and landlords. Keep as much evidence as possible. Take photographs of when you move in and when you move out to have yourself covered. Clean as regularly as you can to avoid any disputes over cleaning standards at the end of your contract. Read your contract in depth, keep a safe copy of it for reference and be sure to search for any hidden fees.
Write to your local MPs and insist that this be discussed in parliament. The Ministers for Housing and Education have a duty to fulfil that is doomed to catch up with them in the long-run and devastate the quality of housing for future renters and home-owners. Ministers need to take a more proactive role in the issues at hand in order to make a real difference. Students lift up economies; they support and bring in regular income for local, independent businesses and are at the very heart of thriving industries in hundreds of towns and cities. Governments must invest in protecting young people, instead of continually looking the other way. We are the future, and we deserve better.
Written by Heather Collier
Hi, I’m Heather. I’m a freelance writer, photographer and film fanatic living between Hertfordshire and South London. I love wild swimming, eating endless amounts of pasta and getting stuck into politics.