Housing advice
If you are looking for general advice about looking for housing in London, we would recommend the London Student Housing Guide website. This will guide you through the process of planning your search, inspecting properties, signing the contract and paying deposits.
This section is more designed to inform you about the specific services available to you as a University of London, University of the Arts, London or a Ravensbourne College student.
Alternative Advice Centres
Contract checking service
If you want us to read through your contract before you sign it, you are welcome to bring it in. Please call to arrange first. We can tell you what the contract means and whether there are any clauses that we think should be removed. We can also help draft amendments and advise on general negotiating tactics with your landlord/letting agent.
If you are not able to come in, you are welcome to fax a copy of the contract through. However, please call us first.
Legal advice
The Private Housing Unit (PHU) have designated members of staff who are able to give a range of housing advice. Increasingly the problems we have to deal with are of a legal nature, such as clarifying terms of a tenancy agreement and dealing with landlord disputes concerning issues of disrepair and refunding deposits.
To support us in our advice work with students we are able to consult our own housing solicitors, Powell Forster, who we have retained for the last seven years. They assist us with input on individual cases where appropriate, for instance clarifying documentation and checking our interpretation of particular situations. Working with them in this way enhances the knowledge and skills of our staff, and means we are able increasingly to provide a better direct service to our students.
Occasionally there will be situations where we feel that students should be referred directly to our solictors for a consultation. This will normally be in cases of a serious nature and where there is some urgency, i.e illegal eviction or serious harassment. In such cases the PHU staff will, in consultation with the student, arrange the time and date of the consultation and send all appropriate documentation to the solicitors who will keep us informed of developments. A considerable percentage of our budget is allocated for students to be supported in this way and it is crucial that the PHU continue to manage the use of the solicitors time appropriately.
Contact us directly either by coming into the office ( directions are here) or by phone to arrange an appointment (Telephone: 0207 862 8880).
One to one housing advice for students looking for housing
Looking for housing can be a long, tedious, frustrating and confusing business. If you are having difficulties finding appropriatre housing, we can advise you about your choices and maybe suggest a few options that you have not yet considered.
Complaints Procedure against ULHS registered Landlords/Agencies
We take all complaints seriously. Some problems will be relatively easy to resolve if each party is prepared to allow the Private Housing Unit to assist in bringing the matter to a satisfactory conclusion. This will usually be the case.
However there are some situations which are complex and are characterized by completely differing perceptions of the same situation which will, therefore, prove impossible for the Private Housing Unit to reconcile. In these situations the procedure is as follows:
1 The student makes a formal complaint. Once we have established that all attempts by the student to resolve the matter with the landlord have failed we will then:
2 Inform the landlord, in writing, of the exact nature of the complaint and invite the landlord to provide a response. In exceptional circumstances the PHU reserves the right to suspend the Landlord or Accommodation Agency from our lists with immediate effect pending the outcome of enquiries.
3 Once the landlord has responded the PHU will, if they feel it appropriate, and if both parties agree, attempt to work out a resolution to the problem.
Assistance from your local authority
In many cases involving disrepair, harassment or even eviction, your local authority would be the appropriate people to contact. This page describes the different services available from them.
- Environmental Health Officers:The Environmental Health Department at your local council has the job of ensuring that houses and flats within their area are safe and healthy. Environmental Health Officers (EHO’s) have powers to prosecute landlords who rent out properties that are bad for health.
- Tenancy Relations Officers: Tenancy Relations Officers have the job of protecting tenants from landlords who either harass or illegally evict. In some local authorities, they will also deal with letting agents that make illegal charges. If you are looking for the relevant contact details on the local authority website, we suggest that you search their A-Z index under the following headings: “Housing Advice”, “Harassment” and “Illegal Eviction”.
You can access local authority websites using the clickable map below:
