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Terms-Policy

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Deposits

A security deposit of £400 - £500 per tenant (between 1.2 and 1.5 months rent) will be held for the duration of the tenancy against damage and non payment of rent or any other agreed costs. This will be payable on signing of a contract and returned at the agreed end of the tenancy subject to the property being returned clean and a satisfactory inventory and damage check.

Since 6th April 2007 the security deposit on any new tenancy must be held under a government backed Tenancy Deposit Scheme. Under these schemes, disputes over any retained deposit will be decided by an independent organisation. The schemes are a compulsory requirement of new legislation and seek to protect tenants from unfairly withheld deposits. We are members of the schemes operated be Tenancy Deposit Solutions Ltd (TDSL) and the Deposit Protection Service and currently send all Deposit money to DPS for safe independant holding, you can find more detail on their websites

Guarantor and References

All students will be required to complete a Tenant Particulars Form and provide a guarantor; who will be asked to sign a Letter of Guarantee, promising to underwrite any liabilities for which you do not pay. This would normally be a parent or relative living in the UK. For each Tenant, the Guarantor will become liable for any of that Tenants unpaid debts. We will normally handle debts in accordance with how we have been told that rent payments are to be split. However as the Tenancy is Joint and Several everybody is ultimately equally liable for the debt of a defaulting tenant. (see Late Payments / Arrears and also Liabilities of Guarantors )

Information on the Tenant Particulars form will be used to obtain references from past landlords and/or credit reference agencies. When all checks and guarantees are complete the tenancy will be setup. This process may take 1 to 3 weeks

Tenancy Admin Fee

A Non-Refundable Tenancy Admin fee, of £50 per person on a joint tenancy or £75 for a single person tenancy or for single semester tenants, will be made to Reserve your house and cover the administrative costs of taking up references and other checks, creating the Agreement, registering and protecting your deposit, informing utility companies and the local council of the tenancy, preparing the Inventory and checking you In and eventually Out of the property.

After reserving a house and paying the Fee, if you change your mind this charge will not be refunded. Similarly, if we decide not to let to you because of false or misleading information on application forms, bad references or uncompleted guarantees it will not be refunded. For other reasons, then at our discretion, up to 50% of it may be refunded once the house has been re-let.

This charge will be made only once for the duration of your tenancy and is not payable again if you extend a tenancy for a further period.

Tenancy

Our property is normally let to groups of students on a joint tenancy agreement for at least a full 10-month year Sept-June inclusive. ( possibilities to start earlier than Sept or to remain after June through some or all of the summer by agreement ). If anyone needs to move out before the end of the tenancy it would be their responsibility to find a replacement or continue to pay rent. Also all tenants are jointly responsible for each others rent or other liabilities if not paid. This is the standard form of tenancy for shared houses. View Agreement

From June onwards, in any year, a property that is not already let or that is newly available may be let at our discretion on a room by room basis for 1 or both semesters to satisfy the demand from Erasmus students or late entry students for the following academic year. This option will be detailed in the property listing when it is available.

Interest Rate Adjustment

We are very aware that finances for everybody and especially students are getting more difficult and we endeavor to keep rents as low as we can but in doing so we also need to protect yours and the landlords interests in case the financial situation changes greatly during your tenancy.

Whilst the current outlook is for the Bank of England base rate to stay low (currently 0.5%) we cannot rule out the possibility of rises again between now and June 2012. We have tried to keep rents as low as possible in the expectation that interest rates will stay low. A rise to 2% would increase finance costs such that we cannot maintain the rent levels as low as we would like. For this reason, for full year contracts on some properties we may include a term in the rental agreement which provides for an "Interest Rate Adjustment" in case the Base rate rises to 2% or above .

An increment of £6 or £10 per person will be added to the monthly rent if the Base Rate reaches 2% and for each 0.5% that the Base rate exceeds 2% . Payment of this increment may be deferred to assist with budgeting if required and it will also be capped so that no further rise takes place above a Bank rate of 4%. The maximum number of increments will therefore be 5.

The application of this adjustment depends on the finance arrangements for each house. The houses are in 3 groups....

For Upper/Lower Chapel House and Alexandra B, no rises will be applied.
For Blagdon, East Way, Bloomfield, Old Fosse, Shophouse and Coronation the monthly increment unit per person will be £6.
For Eastbourne, Alexandra A, Ferry and Excelsior the monthly increment unit per person will be £10.

Increased costs due to rises up to 2% and above 4% will be fully born by the landlord. The adjustment when the clause operates represents approx 50% of the additional finance cost of the houses when the Interest Rate is varying in the range 2-4%. The aim is to share the effective cost increases up to a point and also to limit the additional cost which might apply to you.

The maximum additional weekly cost ( in case the Bank of England Base Rate reaches 4% or more ) will be £6.92 each for group 2 houses and £11.54 each for group 3 houses.

Retainer

If you want to secure a house for next year as a new tenancy, then you will need to rent the house from when it becomes available in the summer usually from July 1st. (but sometimes existing tenants stay on during the summer so it may be later). The months of July and August are often called the Retainer Period and during this time we offer a discount of 50% off the rent for any weeks some or all of you are not living at the house. (this will be calculated pro rata according to how many of the tenants reside at the house for what period). Your agreement will give you the right to live at the house during July/August or pay reduced rent at your choice. This will be from the time the house becomes free ( or 1st July at earliest) until you move in ( or August 31st at latest). Please discuss this when you view a house.

As most of our houses are contracted into tenancies for the following academic year during January - March, this means in practice that most tenancy agreements are for a full 12 month period 1 July to 30 June with July and August being at half rent. If you delay renting a property until September, you will avoid paying anything during the summer but your choice of property will be very limited.

If you want to continue a tenancy from one year to the next, A retainer discount of up to 50% rent can be obtained during a period of up to two months during the summer when the property will be wholly or partially unoccupied and available for maintenance work. You may be required to return your keys during such a retainer period and we will do an inventory and condition check. Any damage that is recoverable against the "deposit" will be assessed, charged for and corrected during the retainer period.

During the discounted retainer period, you can store property in the house and stay occasionally by arrangement as long as any necessary maintenance work can still be carried out.

Cleaning

You are responsible for keeping your house clean and returning it so when you leave. We know students don't like cleaning and so an optional cleaning service is available for the shared parts of your house. This costs £60 / visit (for 6 hours cleaning) at the end of each term - 3 visits in total. Or if you have a mid term clean as well £40 / visit ( for 4 hours cleaning ) - 6 visits in total.

Payment of Rent

Rent is payable monthly in advance on the first of each month. First payment due at the start of the tenancy will be adjusted, if necessary, up or down by 1/30th of a months rent per day to bring it to the nearest start of a month.

The agreed monthly rental is for the whole house and we leave it to you decide how to apportion it between each tenant. You should advise us how much each person will pay of the rent, or we will assume an equal split. Payment options are :-

	Monthly Standing Order on 1st of every month,
	Monthly bank transfer using Internet banking,
	Termly or by Semester by a single Cheque at beginning of each term/semester,
	Monthly by 3 or 4 post dated Cheques collected at start of each term.
	In case of exceptional banking complications Monthly Cash payment is also acceptable.

Late Payment / Arrears

It is important that rent is paid on time and that you make sure that your housemates paid also. Rent is always due on the first day of the month.

Standing Orders and Internet banking should happen 2-3 days before to allow for transaction time. Cheques posted should arrive by the first. A series of cheques can be provided and they will be presented on the dates written on the cheques. If we have agreed cash payment we will arrange a time to collect the rent within the first few days of the month.

We will remind you by phone, text and/or email if your rent is not received by the 5^th of the month. If your rent has not arrived by the 12^th we will write to you and to your guarantor about the late payment, (we have agreed to inform your guarantor of any breaches of your agreement whereby we might ask them to underwrite your liabilities). If we have to write to your Guarantor we will also make a £10 charge.

If your payment still does not arrive by 19th we have agreed (as part of the Guarantee) to write to your housemates and ALL the Guarantors to alert them to a breach in the contract, before taking further steps to recover the debt. For this there will be a charge of £20 and on each subsequent occasion that we have to write to all tenants and guarantors.

It may seem harsh to operate like this, but you are joint tenants and jointly liable for the whole rent. Although you may have decided a rent split and told us, you should be aware of each others payments. We keep a record of agreed shares every payment made and can provide copies as required. If anyone does not pay their rent share, you are ALL technically liable for the shortfall and for this reason we have to inform everyone of a potential problem and make a charge for the cost of doing so.

We realise that student finances are not always straight-forward and we can sometimes agree to some flexibility but it is important that you agree this first with us. If there are reasons why you cannot make you rent payment on time you MUST tell us and we will consider your situation.

You should also make sure that there is sufficient money in your account to cover cheques. If you bank will not honour a cheque, they will charge you and our bank will also charge us (about £10) which we will then have to charge to your account.

Insurance

The houses are all insured for the buildings themselves and the furnishings and equipment supplied by us. You are strongly advised to obtain insurance for your own personal property against fire, theft and other losses. In some cases your parents contents insurance may cover you whilst you are away from home as a student, please check carefully. Most bedrooms are fitted with secure locks and you will be asked to agree to us holding duplicates of all house and room keys. You should also inform us of any period when the house will be left unoccupied for more than 2 weeks, as our insurance policy requires us to check empty houses on a regular basis.

Gas, Electric, Water, Broadband, Wireless Router, Phone, TV License

Inclusive Utilities - The rents quoted now include Gas, Electricity, Water, Phone Line, Broadband, TV license. The phone line will have all chargeable outgoing calls barred but free and emergency calls are available and calls may be received. The broadband service will be upgraded to a faster 20-24 Mhz as soon as it becomes available. Gas and Electricity is budgeted on fixed cost contracts based on 1.5 times UK average consumption for the size of house. There may be extra charges if this allowance is exceeded. Consumption will be monitored termly and you will be advised accordingly. These supplies will be contracted and the price fixed when you sign the rental agreement.

Digital TV box (Virgin Media or Sky), TV set

Some of these may be included in some of our properties. See individual House details. In cases where there are inclusive services you will always be responsible for Pay TV events "Films or Sport etc", Phone calls outside any inclusive package, charges for Higher Upgraded Broadband speeds or Exceeding any Download limits.

The houses in the SW quarter of Bath are served by Virgin Media and where we use their services, the Virgin digibox is maintained by them. Contact us if there is an fault. These houses are Coronation, Old Fosse, Bloomfield, Shophouse, EastWay, Blagdon.

Elsewhere there are Sky dishes and boxes that are from previous contracts, they are not maintained by us but you are welcome to use them. We have some spare and will try but not guarantee to replace any faulty ones.

Similarly many houses contain TV sets that were left by previous tenants, again they will not be maintained if they fail but we do have some spares we may be able to supply.

Council Tax

Students are exempt from payment of Council Tax and the Council may write and ask for copies of your student registration details. Be aware that if there are any non students on the tenancy, the council will charge 75% of the full tax on the house when there is one non student and the full tax if there are 2 or more. Also the council will hold all tenants jointly liable for payment ( not just the non-students )