Advice for Students
For many people, renting a student house is their first experience of renting a property. Therefore they are often unsure about their exact rights, and the responsibly of their landlords. This can make them vulnerable to being exploited by landlords, whose only purpose is to make as much profit as possible. This article aims to provide some useful advice for students about what services they should legally expect from their landlords.
It is a legal requirement for landlords to provide new tenants with a gas safety certificate, reassuring students that their rented home is safe and secure. This document should be updated every year to ensure that no new problems have occurred. Many students are unsure about the exact symptoms of carbon monoxide, associating their headaches, dizziness and nausea with a hangover or the flu. However, carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas that can prove fatal if left undetected.
Shocking new information from the Gas Safe Register has found that “private rental landlords in Great Britain are ignoring their legal responsibilities to keep tenants safe. Only half of tenants received a gas safety record when they moved into their property, despite this being a legal requirement for landlords to provide.”
Only this year an Oxford landlord was fined for endangering the lives of his student tenants because he did not have an up to date gas safety certificate. Annual boiler services and general maintenance of pipes and flues is also the responsibility of your landlord. Some landlords may not fully be aware of their legal responsibilities, or may simply believe that students are too young and naive to know when their rights are not be upheld. If you are a student renting a property then ensure that your new home is safe by immediately contacting your landlord if you have not been shown your gas safety certificate.