Date Posted: 14/10/2024

1.           The Role of the Private Rented Sector in Supporting Higher Education

Student housing is an educational issue. Housing enables students to study at a university of their choice, and has supported the expansion of HE over recent decades. Students only live near their university for a short time, and treating students the same as the rest of the private rented sector ignores their special requirements such as:

• Housing available in line with the academic year
• Affordability, often meaning shared housing
• Rental payments tied to student loan instalments
• A preference for shared, sociable living often on joint tenancies

The Renters’ Rights Bill proposes significant changes to the private rented sector, which will strengthen tenant rights and recourse. This will have significant impacts on the off-street sector (shared houses and flats) for students, and some unintended consequences including reducing availability and increasing rents.

This briefing focuses specifically on off-street shared student housing in the private rented sector (traditional shared student houses). Unipol is also involved in the halls / purpose built student accommodation sector, which will have different treatment under the Bill, and will produce a separate note on that in due course.

2.           How many students rent? And what kind of housing do they live in?

There are 2,432,010 students studying in England, and 52% live in some form of rented housing:

• First years mainly live in University or private sector halls (533,380)
• Second and third-year undergraduates mainly live in off-street houses (731,790)

Off-street rented housing provides an available and affordable source of housing for 30% (731,790) of students. Rents are lower and more affordable on limited student budgets, reducing the overall cost of study, averaging £130 per week compared to £190 per week in halls.

The Bill proposes significant changes to the off-street sector of the market.

3.              Our Concerns

The Bill proposes an end to section 21 no fault evictions, and this will benefit longer-term renters in the general private rented sector. It will also benefit the first cohort of students it applies to, who will be able to give notice before their 12-month contract ends, with many expected to reduce to 9 months.

Landlords who experience this increased risk and financial precarity are likely either significantly increase future rents or move to another sector of the rental market.

We are therefore concerned that future cohorts of student will face higher rents and less available off-street housing, leading to problems of student homelessness, damaging access to Higher Education for those with the least resources.

Similar rental reforms were introduced by the Scottish Government in 2017, and there is now an acute shortage of student housing and the Government recently reported[1] on the problems and called for wide ranging action to address the issue.

There are some specific elements of the Bill that could also cause harm to students:

• The Bill provides for rent to paid monthly. Most students rely on the maintenance loan to pay their rent, which is paid in three instalments, and landlords time their rental periods to coincide with this. A move to monthly rent periods will increase financial hardship to students, who find termly rental payments a helpful way to manage their budgets.
• The new student ground for possession 4A will only apply to Houses of Multiple Occupation (so with 3 or more occupants) excluding one- or two-bedroom properties. These smaller properties make an estimated 31% of the market across the UK, over 50% in some locations such as Newcastle upon Tyne and Preston[2]. A loss of 30% of the off-street market could equate to 226,000 students not being able to find suitable housing.

4.           Recommendations

1. The Government should publish an impact assessment of the educational impacts of the proposed Bill. This should include comparison with the situation in Scotland.
2. There is no single department with responsibility for student housing, meaning it often gets overlooked. The Department for Education should lead on this issue, with co-operation from MHCLG.
3. A Student Housing Working group should be established by Government to consider the detail of the Bill, and its implementation and ongoing impacts
4. A Student Tenancy specifically for the off-street rented sector should be considered. Features could include:

• A cooling off period after booking that would enable students to cancel up to 4 months before the tenancy began, which would effectively end early renting
• A ban on requiring rental guarantors, which negatively impact care leavers and estranged students, as well as international studentd
• The ability to give notice in specified circumstances such not getting the required grades or visa to commence study, or leaving university
• Rental payment periods linked to student loan payments
• In exchange for these bespoke rights that address student concerns, landlords should retain the ability to issue fixed term tenancy agreements, enabling the ongoing supply of housing linked to the academic cycle.

Unipol has a number of detailed questions and concerns about the Bill. We will provide further notes on this in due course, as well as our own statistical impact assessment of the Bill on the supply of student housing and views from students about the impact of the Bill.

5.             About Unipol Student Homes

Unipol is a specialist student housing charity, established in 1975 by the University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University. Its mission is to make student housing better.

Since then it has expanded and now operates an approved code under the Housing Act 2004, the ANUK/Unipol National Codes for providers of purpose-built accommodation which cover 400,000 beds. It also provides sector training, student advice, research and is also a landlord to 3,500 students.

www.unipol.org.uk/about

Contact: Victoria Tolmie-Loverseed, Deputy Chief Executive, [email protected]