Nottingham Trent University, all universities nationwide, and the government have asked us not to return to campus or our accommodations until mid-February (earliest) because of the national lockdown. It is therefore wholly unethical for Unipol Housing to demand full rent payments for currently unoccupied rooms, as well as not allowing tenants a rent rebate or reduction. 

Sandhills is a private student accommodation with strong affiliations to NTU - all students were required to go through the NTU website to apply for this accommodation before the start of the 2020/21 academic year - https://www.ntu.ac.uk/life-at-ntu/accommodation/private-halls-of-residence

It is clear to see that private accommodations are consistently being treated differently to university-owned halls when it comes to rent refunds - we, as students, should be fully entitled to a rent reduction or even a full rent refund for this national lockdown period. Everyone should be treated equally and fairly - either all students should get rent rebates or refunds or nobody should get them, regardless of which university we attend or which housing association we are staying with.

All NTU and UoN Sandhills residents agree that we should have already received rent rebates or reductions, as most other private student accommodation associations have already reduced their rent or given full refunds to their tenants. Student Roost has already done this, for example. We strongly believe that we should not be paying for flats and studios that are not currently being lived in by students.

The way that Unipol Housing is approaching this situation is unacceptable and unfair. As tenants of Unipol Housing, we seem to be being pushed to a side because private halls appear to have no duty of care or obligation to their tenants, compared to university-owned halls. However, this should not imply that it is acceptable for Unipol Housing to exploit its tenants during the peak of a global pandemic by asking them for full rent payments.

13/01/20 - NTU released a statement stating that they are waiving rent for tenants of NTU accommodations and also urged PRIVATE LANDLORDS to be 'flexible' with their student tenants. Therefore, we hope that through this petition and the new NTU statement, Unipol Housing will seek to take the ethical decision to waiver our rent as well.