Students' flats review in Brighton and Hove (From The Argus)
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Students' flats review in Brighton and Hove
10:20pm Friday 20th February 2009 in
Landlords could be stopped from dividing family homes into flats for students under plans to relieve problems with neighbours.
A strategy for dealing with student housing is being drawn up to tackle a lack of accommodation for universitygoers and tensions with neighbours and the limitations on landlords is one option being considered.
A review of multiple-occupation houses, when family homes are converted to rooms for students, is under way.
Council leader Mary Mears said: "We have to look at reducing high concentrations of students in private houses.
"This strategy will give us practical ways of improving each area and developing purpose-built accommodation for students that would also improve communities."
The plan is being put together by a partnership, made up of Brighton and Hove City Council, universities, housing partners, primary care trust, businesses, landlords and estate agents.
An investigation into the growth of the student population and how it is affecting housing in Brighton and Hove was carried out by the council last year.
A series of public meetings were held to gather evidence from experts, students and other members of the community.
It emerged the number of offcampus student properties had grown from 2,000 to 3,000 since 2004.
Coun Mears said: "We have two thriving universities in the city and we all recognise the importance of working together.
"Our aim is to make sure there is adequate supply of good quality housing for students and that we deal with issues such as overcrowding and impact on other residents.
"The universities are working with each other and the council on student housing.
"This includes planning for purpose-built accommodation, property management, advice for students and dealing with any issues that may arise in the community."
A University of Sussex spokeswoman said: "The university is happy to be working with the city council on strategies for student housing."
A University of Brighton spokesman said: "We take these issues seriously and took a full and active part in the scrutiny committee.
"The university has appointed a community liaison officer who updates residents about what is going on at the university and seeks feedback on neighbourhood issues to improving relations with communities."
Comments(17)
TheInsider
says...
10:44pm Fri 20 Feb 09
I am going to dump my rubbish in their bins now as despite being a load of soya bean eaters, banging on about carbon footprints, they spend their time filling bins and not recycling and taking up the roads with their shiny new cars.
It would also be useful if the council's noise people were given powers to impose noise orders with immediate effect instead of having to give residents noise diaries which they have to keep for months before any legal action can be started.
Me and my neighbours are going to go through their front door with a sledgehammer if we have any further problems because the lads next door to us seem a little it backward. The police wont turn up to arrest us anyway as they are too busy making videos on the London Road.
GreenGrocer
says...
11:10pm Fri 20 Feb 09
Brighton council does not have ANY power under the housing Act 2004 to do this, it can only stipulate a maximum number of students in a house, and only where the house is of 3 or more stories and more than 5 occupants who form one or more households!
quote: "Mandatory HMO licensing applies to all privately rented HMOs of three or more storeys and occupied by five or more people who form more than one household"
Also:
...the act allows... "local authorities to establish discretionary additional HMO licensing schemes, subject to approval from the Secretary of State, to cover smaller types of HMO where management problems have been identified."
It's not the landlords at fault in a mjaority of cases, but the tenants who don't abide by the clear stated conditions in their tenancy agreements - so perhaps better enforcement by the council/some landlords of problem tenants is in order!!!!
One major problem is that landlords do not know there are problems with tenants unless they are TOLD!!!
Perhaps a register of landlord contact details accessible by the council only (i.e. not public) so that they can report problems reported to them, to the landlords is a good idea?
GreenGrocer
says...
11:23pm Fri 20 Feb 09
TheInsider wrote:Students occupy the houses NOT the landlord, students, along with many other categories of people, have been exempt from council tax since 1993 when the Council Tax system was introduced.
Can we have the contact details for the student liaison officers please and can Coun Mears get landlords to pay council tax. The bloke who owns the house next to me has six houses in this area and does not pay any council tax on any of them despite packing what are two bedroom houses with six young people. Despite no-one paying for services to these properties the student homes are given extra wheelie bins, yet if I dared to put a black bag next to my wheelie bin it gets left behind. I am going to dump my rubbish in their bins now as despite being a load of soya bean eaters, banging on about carbon footprints, they spend their time filling bins and not recycling and taking up the roads with their shiny new cars. It would also be useful if the council's noise people were given powers to impose noise orders with immediate effect instead of having to give residents noise diaries which they have to keep for months before any legal action can be started. Me and my neighbours are going to go through their front door with a sledgehammer if we have any further problems because the lads next door to us seem a little it backward. The police wont turn up to arrest us anyway as they are too busy making videos on the London Road.
This is only fair in a democracy which provides and promotes further education, don't forget that the average student over the course of his/her working life pays significantly more tax (income tax, NI etc) back to the state, than the
average person does, feel free to look this up!
So 3 yrs of not paying is hardly a big deal for the country!
I suppose you have never ever made a noise or annoyed a neighbour, be honest now!!!?
And no, I'm not a student, and I live right next door in a terrace, to a house of 4 students who are perfectly well mannered, and keep the noise down if asked politely!
TheInsider
says...
11:24pm Fri 20 Feb 09
When you are woken repeatedly at 3am, it's quite satisfying to jump in the car and drive to get the rather ashen faced landlord out of bed every time you are woken by his tenants.
A letter to the Inland Revenue about the numbers living in a property can also help the tax man as often the landlords are not fully declaring the income.
The disgruntled kids next door to me had dobbed him in themselves as they were fed up with living in the dump.
TheInsider
says...
11:45pm Fri 20 Feb 09
The way the council tax exemption is levied is the problem not the exemption for students itself.
The exemption is given if a house is wholly occupied by students. Therefore, students no longer live in mixed houses with working people, hence the letting boards requesting student let only.
Before the council tax exemption, a landlord would pay rates on a property no matter who lived in it. If a property had students in it, these students could re-claim the rate element of their rent directly back from the council.
This meant students would live in mixed houses. This helped keep noise down as working people would bring them into line.
As for the NI and tax, The Guardian ran a feature even before the recession began calculating that this was no longer the case, particularly as UK graduates are starting work much later and graduate salaries are dropping drastically in comparison to young people leaving at 18 and following vocational career paths (doctors, law being the exception)...and god knows what will happen in the next decade. My friend has recently received a letter from the DWP stating that as he did not start full time work until 29 he will have to work until he is about 78 to be entitled to the full pension. With a large student loan to pay as well, he has questioned the value of his chosen course.
The issue of whether to go into higher education or start work immediately and study later in life or in a way other than full time education, will be a serious issue for debate during this recession.
GreenGrocer
says...
11:47pm Fri 20 Feb 09
TheInsider wrote:Why don't you just keep a diary as required by law, and take action through the council, you have to prove that there is a continued problem, not the odd late party waking you up!
It's easy to find the landlord's home address via the Land Registry for a few pounds online. When you are woken repeatedly at 3am, it's quite satisfying to jump in the car and drive to get the rather ashen faced landlord out of bed every time you are woken by his tenants. A letter to the Inland Revenue about the numbers living in a property can also help the tax man as often the landlords are not fully declaring the income. The disgruntled kids next door to me had dobbed him in themselves as they were fed up with living in the dump.
I think you'll also find that it's pretty impossible for a landlord to hide money received as they are not in 99% of cases not paid in cash but via their bank, and you should also know, they probably are only just covering the mortgage interest, cost of repairs, depreciation on furniture etc etc which is all totally legally allowed against tax!
The average student house you are complaining about is actually probably generating VERY LITTLE tax liability at all, if any, unless the landlord has owned the property for a number of years when it was much much cheaper to purchase!
e.g. rent for house assuming 4 people average of £1400 pcm, minus 14% management fee by agency = £1200 pcm income,
mortgage cost at 5% say, at average price of £210k for house with 15% deposit is £8900 per year,
so that's 14400 - 8900 = £4500 taxable a year before any allowance for depreciation of furniture/repairs.
Or a tax liability even at 40% of maximum £1800, hadly a lot is it!!!?
GreenGrocer
says...
11:48pm Fri 20 Feb 09
TheInsider
says...
12:07am Sat 21 Feb 09
We kept noise diaries and it was dealt with eventually and they were evicted at a huge cost in time and paperwork to the council paid for by my council tax. It wasn't the odd party. It was BIMM students having band practice from midnight until five in the morning, every night from the day they moved in until the day they were thrown out four months later after waking six to seven houses of working residents up.
Their parents even delivered amplifiers at 10pm on a Tuesday night. It was astonishing.
pigletstrotters
says...
2:18am Sat 21 Feb 09
Osama bin there
says...
8:23am Sat 21 Feb 09
stan bailey
says...
11:17am Sat 21 Feb 09
TheInsider wrote:yep, the landlord banks the money, the property's neighbours have to endure the students and try and get something done about them. Why does the council not employ noise officers on a 24 hour basis. Nine to five is hopeless. Probably because they pay huge early retirement deals to CEO's and cannot afford to look after the taxpayer properly
Not a lot which is why only declare three, take cash for five.
We kept noise diaries and it was dealt with eventually and they were evicted at a huge cost in time and paperwork to the council paid for by my council tax. It wasn't the odd party. It was BIMM students having band practice from midnight until five in the morning, every night from the day they moved in until the day they were thrown out four months later after waking six to seven houses of working residents up.
Their parents even delivered amplifiers at 10pm on a Tuesday night. It was astonishing.
Ronald
says...
11:28am Sat 21 Feb 09
TheInsider
says...
11:57am Sat 21 Feb 09
Sussex staff make regular visits abroad to encourage overseas students into the city as they pay higher tuition fees and are lucrative business for the college. However, while they invest in an overseas recruitment programme to boost their coffers, they do not match this with accommodation provision.
Hence, increasing numbers of the city's family homes being lost to student accommodation.
Meanwhile local families are sitting in hostels for years waiting for council homes which will never appear. The council should be renting these family homes for local people and if the uni's want to expand, they should provide accommodation. I want to see the Preston Barracks site used for student accommodation to move the kids out of the family homes, not so the uni's can bring even more kids into the city.
Osama bin there
says...
1:46pm Sat 21 Feb 09
But with advent of all the polytechnics becoming (wrongly in my opinion) universities, the accommodation problem wasn't thought through. Most of these polytechnics only had day students before they became unis, and they now found themselves with no dedicated accommodation for the students.
Of course, even in the old 'university' days (pre 1980s) students lived in the community as well as halls of residence, but not in anything like the same numbers as we see now.
There are too many university places producing too many mediocre students with mediocre degrees, that will struggle to find work in the real world.
I'm told by my brother (who's a geography professor) that some of the students are barely literate, and somehow they have passed A Levels! But we are told there's no dumming down in the exam system... Explain then how he can't mark students down for bad spelling and grammatical errors...
Really, there are just too many students for the job vacancies on offer, and a substantial number of them shouldn't even be at University, and wouldn't have got in 20 or 30 years ago.
It's become a BUSINESS, pure and simple, but they haven't spent anything like enough money nationwide providing purpose built student accommodation on campus.
bug eye
says...
12:37am Sun 22 Feb 09
this is all about getting non students back in the houses to get council tax revenue. maybe students should not be totally exempt, and it is certainly not the landlords responsibility to pay it for them, anyway they would just add it on to the rent. student houses should get 25%discount like a single person. mary is on to another unpopular decision and will be costly in money and your job, as there is no confidence in someone who spends so much time on something so trivial in the scheme of things in this city. she is half way through your term and at this rate will be booted out at the next councillors election, and i voted tory, for its new progressive angle but she is old school.
landlords do not make a lot of money and it is as hard work as any other job, not money for nothing, jealousy always comes out when people own property.
Wilftop
says...
9:34pm Sun 22 Feb 09
I'd like to go round to his house & see how he likes it. The on-site security guard is a joke too, the guard couldn't give a poop either.
I just wish these kids could learn some manners!! (I'm only 29 before I get moaned at for being old) & no I did never run round the streets screaming & shouting or damamging other peoples property. But then again I was raised properly, taught how to behave & did a proper degree.
This years intake have been the worst behaved in my 8 years of living in my current house.
But thankfully our current student neighbours are all well mannered young men & women who respect thier home & local area. A few more like them would be fine, but then they are in thier 2nd & 3rd years of thier courses now & understand they live in a residential area.
urooms
says...
5:40pm Tue 25 May 10
http://www.u-rooms.c
om
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