Find your own accommodation

Welcome to this presentation about private rented accommodation. My name is Charlotte and I work at the Advice Place. We're an advice service for all students at the University of Edinburgh. We're run by your Students' Association and our advice covers a wide range of topics including housing and tenancy rights. If you're looking for private flats, renting in Edinburgh, you might find that the flats won't be advertised that far in advance of when they become available. 

This is because in Scotland, in private residential tenancies, they don't have an end date. Tenants just need to give 28 days' notice to the landlord or letting agency before they end the tenancy. Most landlords will only get four weeks to be able to advertise and get new tenants in. Some tenants will give a bit longer notice, so it is worth having a look well in advance, but that would be the general rule. You can search for properties on letting agent websites on sites that pull adverts from lots of different places and more informal channels like Facebook groups. If you're a continuing student, you'll also have access to our flat share website. 

If you're a new student you should have access to that once you're about four weeks within your start date. Normally it means that you would have unconditional firm as your status. And then you should be able to login to our flat share website. The flat share website is just for students, so you can find other students who are flat hunting, other students who are advertising rooms available in their flats, and you can also put an advert up about yourself in case anyone else wants to join with you to look for flats in a group. We're expecting the housing market in Edinburgh to be extremely competitive in the weeks leading up to the start of term. This is because demand for properties is outpacing supply at the moment. September normally is the crunch point when all the students arrive in the city at the same time. Obviously in August in Edinburgh we've got the festival, so we have lots of visitors to the city at that time. They take up a lot of the short term accommodation that's available, so it can be tricky to arrive early and search for properties. We do always suggest that you view properties in-person. If you're wanting to come and look early, do start looking for short term [accommodation]. If you are successful in making an application for a property - and you may not be the first few times -  you might have to apply for quite a few before you become successful. You are probably going to be asked to pay a holding deposit. 

Just do check that that holding deposit will be refunded to you if you don't go ahead with the tenancy or if you do go ahead with the tenancy that that money will become either rent or your tenancy deposit. The tenancy deposit, which needs to be paid into a tenancy deposit scheme, that's a government scheme where your tenancy will be protected and it will only be given back to the landlord if they can prove a good reason for doing so, otherwise, it will be returned to you. These are the sorts of  things that you'll be asked for when you're making applications. You may be asked for the holding deposit. You may be asked for a reference if you've had a previous landlord, if you've lived in student accommodation. You may also be asked to provide a UK-based rent guarantor. That just means somebody who could pay your rent if you weren't able to. If you don't know anyone in the UK who could act as your guarantor, then there are other options. Letting agents and landlords are able to ask you to pay upfront rent instead. The maximum they're allowed to ask for is six months, but often that is how much they ask for. Obviously, that won't be possible for everybody and there is another option. The University also runs a scheme where it will be your guarantor for you. Their rent guarantor scheme details are on their website, but if you have any questions about your eligibility, you can also come to the Advice Place. In Scotland, the type of  tenancy most people flat hunting will be given is a private residential tenancy. We've already mentioned that your deposit needs to be protected in a government scheme. We've also mentioned that these tenancies are open ended. They shouldn't have an end date, and you should be able to give 28 days' notice anytime if you want to end the tenancy. If you're on a lease with other people, if there's a few of you in a flat and you are all on the same tenancy, then you will need to agree when you want to end the tenancy, because it will end it for everybody. Sometimes landlords will allow you to swap in a new person if somebody wants to leave. But they can also end your tenancy, ask you to end the tenancy on that date. That then gives them the opportunity to possibly raise the rent and start a new tenancy for you. If you have any questions about that, do come to the Advice Place. Especially when the market is in demand, as it is at the moment, we do see scams happening. Sometimes these are fake adverts. People trying to scam you out of a deposit where there isn't actually a flat, things like that. We do suggest that you do some basic checks. Viewing the property in-person is always recommended. Also, you can check if the landlord is registered by searching for them on the landlord registration website. You can also search for letting agents and make sure they're registered and they should all be registered on the Scottish letting agent register. If anyone's being pushy or trying to make you pay through money transfer services then, or if the property is too good to be true, it's really cheap and it looks amazing, it might be too good to be true. If you're unsure if you're being scammed or it's a fraudulent advert, then do come to the Advice Place and we can help you figure it out. Other ways that we can help:  We've got lots of information on our website, we've got caseworkers who can help you if anything goes wrong. We can tell you about what your rights are. We can give you hints and tips to help you in your accommodation search. We can try and help you avoid scams. If anything goes wrong during your tenancy, if you're having issues repairs for example, then we can tell you what your rights are and how to resolve those. If it's getting towards the start of term and you haven't been able to find anywhere to live, then please do get in touch with us. We're working with the University on a plan for supporting students who are struggling to find accommodation when it's getting towards the start of term when you need to be here in Edinburgh to start your studies, so do get in touch. Thanks for listening. If you have any further questions, you can get in touch with the Advice Place. Cheers. Bye.