Launching a campaign for Leeds student rent relief
I’m teaming up with Leeds Beckett and Trinity Student Union Officers on a campaign on student renter hardship in the COVID-19 pandemic, launching today.
We know many students have lost income from causal employment and have been failed by Government hardship schemes, often not being eligible for furlough or Universal Credit, and are now having to pay rent on houses that in some cases you’re no longer living in and may not be returning to. We no longer get the maintenance grant, and yet average weekly rents for shared houses is around £100 per week or in purpose built, up to £130 — that’s £5,200 to £6,760 per year — but many students receive less than £5,000 Student Finance (loan). This is hard enough to pay for without the financial hardship the pandemic is creating for students and their supporters.
The law governing tenancy agreements is complex and unlikely to change regarding ending tenancies in relation to the pandemic, and unless your landlord agrees to a change you are still contractually obligated to pay your rent. However, the Government is urging landlords to be as flexible as they can, making use of the support schemes available to them: “landlords and tenants will be expected to work together to establish an affordable repayment plan, taking into account tenants’ individual circumstances”.
We’re supporting calls from the National Union of Students for rent flexibility for student renters, and are asking for Leeds City Council to support our campaign for student rent relief. We wrote to 15 Councillors on the 5th May, setting out what we’re asking for, which is primarily around encouraging landlords to take up Mortgage Holidays to allow them to provide flexibility. Since this we’ve spoken to MPs about the issue and contacted the CEO of LCC.
We’re also providing a letter template to help you negotiate with your landlord, an updates page on how specific landlords and providers are behaving towards student renters — this will help us keep track of who, as Student Unions, we want to promote to our combined 70k students going forwards, and a form for you to tell us more about your experiences (good and bad — i.e. as per government guidelines, have they worked with you to provide flexibility on payments — or have you been threatened with eviction?).
You can check out all the info at leedsstudentrentrelief.co.uk!
