Or know someone who is?

Two Four broadcasting is making a TV show similar to Rogue Traders and they want your help.

So, if your landlord:

• Never gets things fixed
• Never answers the phone
• Turns up without warning
• Charges you unfairly

…then email tenantsfortv@twofour.co.uk or phone 0207 438 1875. All correspondence is treated with the strictest confidence.

Unpaid student debts could cost the taxpayer around £9 billion a year, a report has found. According to research by investment managers Skandia, unless students immediately earn a £50,000 salary upon leaving university, a “significant amount” of their debt will be written off.

Plans to triple fees to a maximum of £9,000 were approved by MPs in December 2010, but this will be paid in the form a loan. Any part of this loan which is unpaid after 30 years will be written off. The report estimates that if the number of university applicants remains the same, this will cost the Government £8.7 billion in 2045. The figure is dependent on interest rates and the number of students, but it could rise to £9.6 billion.

The report, entitled First Steps to Wealth, also found that graduates earn more than £600,000 more in their careers than 18-year-olds joining the workforce, an average of over £14,000 a year.Graham Bentley, head of investment strategy at Skandia, said: “Those who are able to study for a degree can expect to earn a good living over their lifetime even if they don’t get the job of their dreams straight away and despite incurring costs to complete the course.

“On average, the additional salary received by graduates more than off-sets the debt incurred in studying for a degree. “He added: “Perhaps the biggest challenges highlighted in this study are for the Government.”

The escalating fees charged seemingly at random by letting agents defy the laws of economics. I half suspect they make them up as they go along, daring each other to see what they can get away with.

Penalties are disguised as “admin fees” or “key money”. In fact, the names are as ingenious as the fees. I once heard of a tenant being charged a “finance fee”; that is, the agent had the audacity to charge clients a fee for charging them a fee.

Recently, when I was flat-hunting, I discovered admin fees ranged from £75 to £200. Then there’s an “inventory fee”, “insurance fee”, “checking-out fee” and a “cleaning fee”. Bear in mind the letting agent is likely to be charging the landlord a “finder fee”, plus a part of the rent, often 15%. Then they sting the tenant as well.

The agent letting the flat I was due to move into tried to charge me £150, claiming in mitigation: “We have to pay for our office costs.” In that case, surely, I should be able to invoice them for my own costs, as those removal vans don’t pay for themselves. (They agreed to reduce the fee to £100 as they wanted “to be reasonable”).

In order to amuse myself while sitting in the office signing my badly photocopied, legally dubious, rental agreement, I timed them. Producing the ready-copied documents and checking over my credit rating (which they seemed to do in front of me) took 10 minutes. Another two tenants were in the process of signing up (it appeared they were charged £100 each). That makes £300 for 10 minutes’ work. I wish I was paid that rate.

Now here’s the catch: the usual excuse for letting agents who charge fees is that they cover time spent checking references which, if true, might be reasonable. It’s just that I know, for a fact, that my (excellent, I’ll have you know) references were never checked, which means that if my landlord was also charged a fee, those arduous 10 minutes of pulling pre-printed forms from a file could have earned them roughly £500.

So here is the problem: I’m assertive and know my rights. But what choice do desperate renters have when faced with an agent who – as here – simply issues an implicit threat: words to the effect of “no fee means no flat”? Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb says it “is vital that tenants ask about fees or charges upfront as, unfortunately, once they get to the point of getting the keys it is very difficult to avoid paying”.

He agrees that even when tenants try to clarify the bill upfront, mystery monies still appear. “Many of Shelter’s clients point to ‘hidden’ charges when they are initiating or renewing a tenancy. Often people are unaware what these charges are for, and struggle to pay them on top of a deposit.”

Scotland tried to solve this with legislation. The 1988 Housing Act (Scotland) decrees no fees be charged to tenants, but agents have reacted by brazenly ignoring the law. Admittedly, there is a minority legal view that a small amount is justified, but just before signing my rental agreement I politely suggested the mooted charge may be, well, dodgy. My concerns were greeted with sniggers of disbelief.

But exactly what constitutes a reasonable amount? Keeping in mind the fact that an online credit check costs as little as £5, charging an individual tenant £150 seems extortionate. Ian Potter, operations manager of Arla, the Association of Residential Lettings Agents, had this to say: “Fees will vary from region to region and will depend on the specific services offered.

“However, for landlords and tenants, it is important to obtain clear, written information from an agent about which services the fee includes – and whether there are likely to be any further costs. Consumers should always ensure the agents they use are registered with Arla or theNational Association of Estate Agents, as they will have to comply with strict codes of practice. This means that, should a landlord or tenant feel the fees were unclear, they can lodge a complaint.”

Housing charities have long argued letting agents need tighter regulation. Robb says: “Shelter believes letting agents need to be regulated, so they are more transparent and upfront about charges. We also believe most of these charges should be made to the landlord, not the tenant.”

Last month government plans for regulating the private rented sectorwere published. Housing minister John Healey pointed out more than 3 million families live in private rented housing and, while the majority of tenants say they are happy, many do face problems with their landlord, and should have better help and protection. He said creating “local letting agencies”, where councils and good landlords work together to help people find better-quality homes in the private rented sector, would help sideline the “cowboys”.

These proposals have no timeline, and there is no mention of sanctions for landlords or letting agents who disobey the new rules, or who fail to register, so I suspect the astronomical fees are with us for some time yet.

By Penny Anderson

Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/mar/13/letting-agents-hidden-charges

Student rental advisory website NakedTenant.co.uk has said that despite the National Deposit Scheme which is designed to protect rental deposits, many student tenants are still getting ripped off by their landlords.

Calvin Santana, a student from Oxford Brookes, said “At the end of our tenancy an inventory was carried out by a specialist company. After 10 days, we were contacted by our letting agent who told us that none of our deposit would be returned and that we owed them £500 for damage/replacements. After a crisis meeting in the pub we decided to ask for a complete breakdown of the charges. Eventually, (after 8 weeks!) we received final details of the total amount being claimed. When we looked through this we realised some of the charges were outrageous for example, £50 to remove a working TV and £400 for dust! So we got together and drafted a second letter setting out our objections and what we felt was fair. A couple of weeks later we got £500 back!’’

Naked Tenant believes that the National Deposit Scheme is a solid scheme and really helps to protect tenant’s money, but the scheme is only as strong as the tenants make it. They need to make sure that they carefully read through the breakdown of costs, calculate what they believe to be the correct charges and be willing to stand firm with their decision. Ed Brimfield, a student from Bristol University, was concerned about a £250 charge for cleaning and so asked the agency for details of the cleaning company they had used. The student said ‘’when I investigated further, I discovered this company didn’t even exist!’’

Many tenants think that because the scheme is a legal requirement introduced by the government, they have no say in negotiating the amount of their deposit they should get back, and as a result, end up paying a lot more than they should to the landlord. It is highly unlikely that you will receive all your deposit back as over a 12 month tenancy some fair charges are likely to have occurred, so it is important that both sides have fair expectations in their negotiations.

For helpful free advice, check out TheNakedTenant.co.uk

Some 4,000 officers were on duty, as demonstrators marched peacefully in a protest against higher tuition fees and “privatisation” in universities.

After the violence of last year’s major fees protest, the police had warned they might use plastic bullets in “extreme circumstances”.

Police said 24 people were arrested, mostly for breaches of the peace.

Police estimate there were about 2,000 protesters, but organisers put the number attending at 15,000.

Scotland Yard said three arrests were for public order offences, one was for possession of an offensive weapon, three were for going equipped and 12 breaches of the peace.

At lunchtime, some protesters broke away from the march and set up tents in Trafalgar Square, but were eventually moved on.

The crowd marched to the City of London, where a protest against corporate greed has been taking place outside St Paul’s Cathedral.

Financial district

BBC correspondent Mike Sergeant was with the protesters as they neared St Paul’s and the City.

“The march is moving slowly, sedately even. It is quite extraordinary the way it’s being policed,” he said.

“It’s the most tightly controlled march through London that I have ever seen. Very little opportunity for protesters to break away – an enormous contrast to last year.”

The student protest, organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, is against the government’s plans for a market-driven higher education system and the rising tuition fees.

“We are being told by a cabinet of millionaires that we will have to pay triple tuition fees,” said campaign leader Michael Chessum.

Many students moving out of university halls have to start looking for properties as early as November if they wish to find a decent place to live in the following year. Claire, a first year student from Nottingham University said, ‘I started here just 6 weeks ago and I am already having to decide who I want to live with next year and need to start looking for a house soon otherwise I will miss out on getting a good one’. The search for Student Accommodation is becoming increasingly difficult with demand for student housing rising year on year and the weak job market encouraging more pupils to go to University.

TheNakedTenant.co.uk feels that Universities should work with letting agents to encourage students to start looking for private accommodation in February. This gives them a chance to really settle in, find who they want to live with and then begin their search for a student house. Should letting agents wait until February to release their student housing?

The National Union of Students Scotland said £36,000 for a standard four-year degree at Edinburgh was “both staggering and ridiculous”. Edinburgh is the third Scots university to set its fees for rest of UK (RUK) residents at the maximum level.

However, Aberdeen and Heriot-Watt universities said they intended to cap their fees at a maximum of £27,000 for the course, even if it was four years, the standard length of Scottish courses. The University of Edinburgh said it would not do this but it would offer “the most generous bursary package within the UK for those on the lowest household incomes”.

The Scottish government said a consultation on its proposals for tuition fees for students who come to Scotland to study from other parts of the UK had closed last week. It said fee levels were being set by Scottish universities on an “indicative basis”, pending the outcome of the consultation and the subsequent legislative process.

However, the universities intend to bring in the fees next summer if they get the go-ahead. Students who are resident in Scotland do not pay tuition fees at Scottish universities.

The SNP made a pledge before it was elected in May that it would not introduce fees or graduate contributions from students who live in Scotland.

In June, Education Secretary Mike Russell outlined proposals to allow Scottish universities to set their own fees for UK residents from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The move was prompted by the UK government’s decision to raise the cap on fees in the rest of the UK to £9,000.

Mr Russell said Scottish universities would be free to set fees of between the current £1,800 and £9,000 but said he expected levels to be lower than those south of the border.

Responding to the Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt announcements, a Scottish Government spokesman said: “It is up to individual universities to manage and set their fee levels for students from the rest of the UK, bearing in mind the need to be competitive and attractive to a broad range of students.

“It is in their interests, as well as Scotland’s, that we maintain the cosmopolitan character of our student population at the same time as making sure that opportunities for students who live in Scotland are protected.”

Heriot-Watt said it wanted to cap fees for English, Welsh and Northern Ireland students at £27,000, even if they study for more than three years.

The university said it would encourage as many students as possible to skip their first year of study if their A-level results enabled them to do so, while waiving the first year’s fee for students who opted to take a four-year course.

Reputational damage

The National Union of Students in Scotland said Heriot-Watt’s decision was “terrible”.

After the Edinburgh decision, Graeme Kirkpatrick, depute president of NUS Scotland, said: “The average cost to study at Oxford and Cambridge is around £25,000 in fees, which while still eye-wateringly large, pales in comparison with this.

“And that’s before you add additional debt for the extra year of living costs for the four-year degree in Scotland.

“This is nothing less than cashing in on students from the rest of the UK, and giving the signal that Edinburgh University is more interested in the money you can bring, as opposed to your academic ability.

“The reputational damage this could do, not only to Edinburgh but to the whole of Scottish higher education, should not be underestimated.”

Prof Mary Bownes, vice principal for external engagement at the University of Edinburgh, said: “More than 50% of additional tuition fee income will go towards bursaries with the remainder going towards enhancing the student experience.

“There will also be a major new internally-funded scheme for access and accommodation bursaries for Scottish domiciled students.”

Professor Bownes added: “The increase in the fee is necessary as we will no longer receive government funding for RUK (rest of United Kingdom)-domiciled students.

“These students will be studying at one of the world’s top teaching and research institutions, regularly ranked amongst the leading universities in the world.”

However, Mary Senior, Scottish official of the University and College Union, said: “We are disappointed that Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh universities are to set headline fees at the highest level, leaving students paying more to study in Scotland than even in England.

“Though Edinburgh are offering bursaries most students won’t qualify for these so that only the wealthiest will consider Edinburgh an option.

“Our worst fears that most Scottish universities will ignore the minister and charge the highest possible fee have come to fruition.”

Last month, Prof Iain Diamond, principal of the University of Aberdeen, said that maintaining fees at the current level – about £1,800 a year for most degrees – was no longer possible.

Original article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-14784810

New website aims to reveal the naked truth to student tenants

Students in Bath can get free advice about the potential pitfalls of renting houses thanks to a new website.

The Naked Tenant has been set up, written and researched by two recent graduates who want to pass on their first-hand experiences of the student rental market.

Founders James Bryan, 23, and Malcolm West, 22, were friends when they were pupils at Kingswood School and stayed in touch when they went to Oxford Brookes University together.

Full article: http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/New-website-aims-reveal-naked-truth-student/story-13428967-detail/story.html

On the University of Lincoln’s Brayford Campus, 200 first-year students are faced with living in a newly constructed village of temporary accommodation as the institution struggles to provide housing for an unprecedented number of applicants.

This year the University received a record number of applications, with 3,000 students seeking to start their higher education prior to the increase in tuition fees at the start of the next academic year, when Lincoln intends to raise fees to £9,000 a year. However, only those who applied before 21^st August were offered permanent accommodation, with late applicants, including students applying through clearing, being offered a place in one of the hundred portable cabins in the new “Festival Gardens” complex.

Each cabin, which can house two students, measures 3 metres by 3 metres and includes two single beds, an en-suite toilet and electric heating. The University’s Registrar, Chris Spendlove, is hopeful that the students will embrace what he describes as the “festival-type” atmosphere of the development; however it would appear that few share his optimistic outlook on the situation.

One student, identified only as James, described his accommodation as being nothing more than “a shack in the car park,” when interviewed by the University’s newspaper, The Linc. Whilst another expressed concern at the security of the cabins, saying that she was wary of leaving her valuables unattended.

Speaking on behalf of the Lincoln Student Union, Kayleigh Taylor, Vice-President for Welfare and Diversity, expressed her disappointment at the University’s solution.

As she explained to The Linc, “We were assured last year when we had conversations with the University that they had strategies in place to prevent this from happening, but I think it’s fair to say that the University did not anticipate the number of students that applied.”

She now wants to assure students that the Union will be working to give those housed in Festival Gardens “a good quality student experience,” and is hopefully that a similar situation can be avoided next year.

original article:

http://www.thenationalstudent.com/News/2011-09-19/lincoln_university_students_face_housing_shortage.html

“Just bring the essentials with you on Sunday such as bedding, toiletries, a few cooking utensils etc.”

The students’ union at the university said it sympathised with the position of students who have had difficulty in finding somewhere to live in Lincoln and would do all it could to support and represent their issues.

“At present all the halls accommodation in Lincoln are full but the university is working very hard to ensure that they can accommodate all students who need it on Sunday, albeit that some students will be in temporary accommodation.”

They also say that they “will actively work with the University and community to improve both access to, and quality of, accommodation for Lincoln students in future years”.

Michael Watts, from Nottingham, who will be arriving in Lincoln as a first-year-student and taking a place in the temporary accommodation said: “It’s not really what I expected. I expected to be in normal halls but I suppose the cabins will be OK.

“The fact they have done something about it is really good. I’m really pleased I have got accommodation now even if it is temporary.”