One of the most common complaints students have is “my landlord unfairly took my deposit”.
Most will experience a deposit deduction at some point during their university lives, whether it be fair or unfair.
But students are starting to fight back.
The deposit process is the same as any other part of the law, innocent until proven guilty.
Meaning it is up to the landlord to prove the damage, not
It's not uncommon for people to feel like they've bulldozed themselves into university accommodation – and this was certainly the case for Jack Simm. He said: "It was like a building site, I thought it would be lovely and modern and new and everything."
So he went to the courthouse for his first case and he won it
The 19-year-old was in his first year at the University of East Anglia in September 2020 when he moved into the Velocity Student accommodation in Norwich.
But because he got his university place through clearing he didn't get a chance to view it beforehand.
"I thought I was going to get what I'd seen on these photos," he says. "These nice, upmarket student accommodation rooms."
Image caption,A large hole in the ceiling in one of the rooms at the property
But when he turned up, it was a different story.
"It was a building site," he says of the property which was developed by The Freedman Project LLP and managed by Estateducation.
"There were skips everywhere, tradesmen everywhere, hammering the ceiling, hammering the walls. The place was covered in dust from sanding.
"It was almost ironic and funny that people were moving into this place because it looked awful. It was just a bit of a dire state really."
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After a week Jack moved out and stopped paying his rent. Despite being threatened with recovery action by a debt collector, he turned to his textbooks and started building his case.
'Young people need to back themselves'
He collected witness statements, put together the case law and statute law surrounding contract representation, and sued for breach of contract and misrepresentation.
"It was quite easy to be honest," says Jack, who is originally from Newcastle.
"I studied contract law at the time. To me it was quite an easy case of opening my contract law textbook and looking through some of the relevant law and applied it to the situation."
He adds: "We sued for our money back our deposit our first month's rent. They sued for the entire tenancy agreement - around £7,000."
At an online hearing at Newcastle County Court on 2 November, his dad spoke for him in court, and Jack won what he had paid them plus court fees, totalling £999. The counterclaim was dismissed.
He said it was "great winning" and "really just instilled in me that young people need to back themselves".
"You just can't let these landlords win," he added. "[You've] got to take them to court if this happens. Change will happen. The culture needs to change."
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