Legislation on student accommodation welcomed

With just weeks to go until the release of the Leaving Cert results and the annual scramble to secure accommodation for the upcoming college year, Deputy Michael Lowry has welcomed the news that emergency legislation passed means that Student Specific Accommodation providers will no longer be permitted to impose 51-week leases on students.

Deputy Lowry has raised this issue in the Dáil throughout this term on the basis that students and/or their families were being forced to pay for accommodation for 51 weeks of the year, despite the fact that the College academic year is just 41 weeks.

“The costs associated with being a Third Level student are considerable,” he says, “but paying for an additional ten weeks of accommodation that a student will not use is exploitation. However, this is what has been happening, and students have been forced to comply in order to have a place to live.

“In many cases the average weekly rent is up to €300 for such student accommodation. This means that students and/or their family have been forced to pay up to €3,000 to cover the 10 weeks when the accommodation is not required.

“Developers who have provided student accommodation were given generous incentives to do so," says Deputy Lowry. "In addition to tax benefits, they have also been exempted from the Residential Tenancies Act because they are providing student accommodation for the established 41-week academic year. However, when they exceed this term, they risked losing this exemption. The new legislation also provides a safeguard that only allows Student Specific Accommodation providers to charge up to one month’s rent in advance. This is in line with all other rental tenancies. In the case of students, this will eliminate the demand for significant upfront payments."