Liverpool Lessons - Acommodation

Thank you dr Wega & dr. Fathin as contributors to this article:

*This is a reflection of all the things I learned in my 2 weeks here in* Liverpool. All of them are based from my own experience, so please keep that in mind I’m not even sure all information I present here are correct… D:

•   Let’s get to the diﬃcult
part, finding a place to stay. It’s better to have a short-term stay before you
commit to one long-term place. Sort this out before your arrival in the UK.

•   Basically, there are two
types of accommodation in Liverpool, student accommodation (usually oﬀers
short-term stay of the minimum 4 weeks) and private owned flats (managed by
various private letting agencies).

•   Some popular student
accommodations are: Urban Student Life, X1, Student Roost, Hello Student, iQ
Student, etc. You can find letting agencies posting their product in various
websites such as: Zoopla, Gumtree, Rightmove, etc.

•   To breakdown the diﬀerence between those typer
of accommodations, see table below:

•   Guarantor is the person that
guarantees you will be able to pay the contract of your tenancy. A guarantor
should be a UK resident with a healthy financial condition with no excessive
debt. If you are able to acquire a guarantor, most landlords will let you pay
monthly until the end of the contract. If however you don’t have a guarantor,
you will be required to pay the contract fee upfront, which is a bummer.

•   There are companies that are
willing to become international students guarantor with a specified fee (for
example housinghand.co.uk). This however increases the overall cost that
you need to pay, although you can pay them monthly. Consider them as interest
rates if you will. Be sure to ask the agent on whether or not they accept a
third party company as a guarantor first. Make sure you have the guarantor
ready and confirmed before signing the tenancy contract.

•   Apart from the monthly (or
upfront) rent payment, you need to pay a deposit and agency fee. The deposit is
refundable at the end of your contract, but deduction will be made if you
damage the property in any way, while agency fee is not refundable. Deposit is
usually worth a 4 weeks rent, so try to ask for a lower deposit if it’s more
than that. Don’t expect for the deposit to be fully refunded as they will find
any reason to deduct it.

•   If you rent a flat, all the bills can be paid at
any stores with the “Paypoint” logo.

•   Make sure to ask how to get
council tax exemption if you’re a student. Usually you can apply for it from
your university account page.

Kar: You need to be very lucky to find good accommodation at a very low price. You have to compete with others and the agent or landlord will decide who can rent the property. You have to spare at least a month for this kind of accommodation. The independent sources such as gumtree are also good for this but there are also a lot of frauds in this. So make sure that you check everything before sending payments especially the paperwork. You can use a saver approach to access the agent web site or visiting their offices, using more specific web such as right move, share rooms, Zoopla, open rent, etc. For deposit, there will be a third party who will hold the money for you, for example, DPS (deposit protection service) [1]. For International Students, the interesting places to stay outside the city centre area and baltic triangle are Sefton park and kensington. Bootle, Toxteth, Everton, Vauxhall, and Anfield might be the next alternative.