Frequently asked questions...
Our houses let fast and let first because they are among the best available in terms of location, condition and facilities. Our website details are also second to none and because of this, experience has shown us that 90% of our homes let to the first group seeing them. Viewing invariably is simply a matter of checking that the chosen house is what it seems with signing taking place shortly afterwards, the students concerned knowing that they have secured one of the best houses available for the next academic year.
In order to avoid disappointment the simplest way to book a viewing appointment is to call Geoff on
07495 394999. Alternatively, click the 'BOOK A VIEWING' button on the property details page, or go directly to the CONTACT page.
We need to give the existing tenants 24 hours notice and need the whole group to attend the viewings, which take place from 12 noon onwards. We will meet you at the property concerned.
Please make sure all your group has considered the implications of signing for the property. If you do decide to go ahead, please get in touch with us as quickly as possible.
As soon as we have received your fully completed application form we can reserve the property for you for 24 hours until you have had a chance to read through the Tenancy Agreement, consult with parents and take advice from the contract checking services at the student unions. Once you are happy with the Tenancy Agreement we will make an appointment for you to visit our office to sign it. You will need to discuss amongst yourselves who you want to nominate as the "Lead Tenant".
It is an Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreement (AST). The contract runs from 1st July until 30th June for 52 weeks. The contract checking services at Unipol, Leeds University Student Union, Leeds Metropolitan Students Union and Leeds Trinity University College are all familiar with this contract. A sample copy of the AST is available here. Contact details are as follows:
Unipol
e: info@unipol.leeds.ac.uk
t: 0113 243 0169
Main office located at 155 Woodhouse Lane and drop in centre located in the Leeds University Union Building
Leeds University Union Student Advice Centre
e: advice@luu.leeds.ac.uk
t: 0113 380 1290
Leeds Beckett Students Union Advice Centre
e: suadvice@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
t: 0113 812 8400
Leeds Trinity University College
e: trinitywelfare@hotmail.co.uk
t: 0113 283 7100
Once the contract has been signed by everybody you will be handed a duplicate hard copy and everyone will also be sent a scanned copy electronically.
Contracts are legally binding for the full duration of the tenancy. We will only release you from the contract if you can find a suitable replacement for yourself. The first step would be to consult with your housemates to see if they know anyone within their peer group who would fit into the house nicely. You could also place an advert on the student to student notice board on the Unipol website advertising your room. We would assist with any viewings and organise the paperwork necessary to release you from the contract. We will also place an advert on our own website advertising the spare room.
We charge a deposit of £300 per person, so roughly one months rent. We endeavor to return deposits in full at the end of each tenancy. All that we ask is come the 30th of June, the house concerned is returned to us in the condition in which either you received it or the condition you requested we put it into when you moved in, whichever was the better, less an allowance for fair wear and tear.
All deposits are payable upon signature of the tenancy agreement.
Yes, your deposit will be held in a separate "ring fenced" account and will be registered with mydeposits.co.uk.
Please visit their website for more information.
Deposits will be returned as soon as:
- Proof has been provided that final gas, electicity and water bills have been settled. These need to accord with the final meter readings that we give you on the 30th of June
- Agreement has been reached about any deposit deductions necessitated by the house not being left clean enough when you depart or damaged in some way, excepting for fair wear and tear
Once these two conditions have been met, your deposits will be returned within 10 days to the lead tenant who is then responsible for distributing them among their housemates.
No. All we require is your fully completed application form.
We reserve the right to charge a minimum of £30 for any administration that we have to involve ourselves in that are due to a mistake or action by the tenant, e.g. you fail to cancel your standing order and we have to refund any over payment etc.
We prefer monthly payment by standing order on the 22nd of each month, annual rent divided by 12, first payment to be received by the 22nd June at the latest in order for keys to be given out.
We are happy to provide copies of any documentation relating to your tenancy; e.g. tenancy agreements, deposit protection certificates etc. To cover the costs to us of providing this service, we charge an administration fee of £30 in advance for each document.
Yes.
If the property is completely occupied by full time students the property is exempt from Council Tax. Kensington Property Limited does inform Leeds City Council of your names and student numbers before you move in. However, it is your responsibility to provide them with your Student Council Tax Exemption Certificate, if requested.
We email the lead tenant in the middle of May and ask that they talk to the group and ascertain who will be moving in and when. This information is then emailed back to us by the end of May. Once in possession of this information, we are able to plan our summer work schedule including refreshing, repairing, improving etc. Please arrange to collect your keys by either emailing Geoff (geoff@kpls6.com) or calling him on 07495 394999 prior to July the 1st. Please note that keys will not be released until we have received the first months rent.
The cost of replacing lost keys is our single biggest source of contention with tenants (which shows that we must be doing something right!). If you lose your keys, we will replace them for you. The cost is £35 per key, irrespective of quantity. The cost is so high because the keys themselves are bespoke and part of a master key suite unique to Kensington Property Limited. They come from one source and can only be collected by an authorised signatory for your own security. The cost of £35 is therefore not just for the key, but also to help cover the cost of our ordering them, collecting them and delivering them personally to you. There is no profit to speak of for us, we would rather you kept the money and we didn’t have to go to the inconvenience of replacing keys.
If you do lose your keys, please call or text Erion on 07792 701317, during the working day Monday to Friday, to organise replacements. He usually sources replacements the next day. If it is necessary for Erion to let you in having lost your keys, there will also be a minimum call out charge of £50 in addition to the cost of replacement keys and more if we are talking anti-social hours. It is very easy to avoid this cost, don't lose your keys.
The outgoing tenants may have only left the property a matter of hours from you moving in and should have left the property suitably clean and tidy as instructed. If you find this is not the case, please let us know and we will arrange for professional cleaners to come in at the earliest opportunity. Please bear in mind that we own a large number of houses and we always send the cleaners to the worst houses first.
Despite our desire to do so, we are not always able to hand over houses to new tenants in the condition that we would like. This is for the simple reason that many tenants stay on until the very last minute because they move into their new home the very next morning, leaving us no time for any necessary remedial cleaning. This is a request that you yourselves may be making in 12 months time. We are aware of these instances beforehand and in most cases existing tenants do leave the houses concerned clean and tidy. However, in some cases our requests fall on deaf ears (expensive for the tenant concerned as deposit deductions are made) or the quality of cleaning is not up to our standard. In these cases, we ask for your understanding and guarantee that the house concerned will be brought up to standard within 7 working days and normally much faster.
We do not provide bedding, waste bins, toilet brushes, toilet paper, towels, kitchen utensils, irons or ironing boards or cleaning equipment. We do provide a reliable vacuum cleaner though.
About mid-June, we email a welcome letter informing you about everything you need to know.
If it is something that requires urgent attention, please contact Erion on 07792 701317. If it is something minor, we request that you make a note of it yourself and then once everyone has moved into the house, you all get together with your notes and compile a list of jobs needing doing and email it to us at maintenance@kpls6.com. We will then do all the jobs specified in one hit. We have found this to be the most efficient way of dealing with repairs.
We do try to attend to repairs as quickly as possible but first we have to prioritise them. To do this we use the following categories:
- EMERGENCY REPAIRS (e.g. boiler not working, toilet blocked, water leaks, lock faulty).
We aim to resolve these matters within 24 hours. - URGENT REPAIRS (e.g. toilet seat broken, fridge/washing machine not working).
We aim to resolve these matters within 5 working days. - NON URGENT REPAIRS (e.g. cupboard handle loose, shelf fallen down).
We aim to resolve these matters within 28 days.
Please contact Erion on 07792 701317. Please ensure that it is a genuine emergency and not something that can wait until the morning!
We will email you in mid-May to explain moving out protocols. These will include details about the condition of your home, handing back keys and returning your deposits.
You must vacate your home by noon on the 30th of June. You must ensure that the property is clean and tidy throughout (both inside and outside) as explained in moving out protocols. If you are paying your own utility bills, you also need to take final meter readings and phone them through to the suppliers, giving them a forwarding address to send the final bills to. If you are on a bills inclusive contract, you do not need to do any meter readings etc. when you leave as KPL are responsible for this.
Please note: as regards cleaning, the most difficult situations to handle are the common areas (lounge, kitchen, toilet, stairs etc), especially in the large houses. The most common cause of disagreement is reconciling the contribution of those housemates leaving first and the burden that those leaving last have to pick up. The best solution that we have found is to get a "molly maid" style quote from a cleaning company, share the cost and get the cleaners in a week before the 30th June. If you keep the common areas clean from there, this leaves only your own bedroom to concern yourselves with. Please remember that charges will be levied, as per your tenancy agreement, for cleaning costs plus landlord admin costs if houses need cleaning after you have left. This is unnecessarily expensive, so please try and avoid it by simply leaving your house as you would wish to find it should you be moving in for the first time.
We always email our tenants around October to offer them first refusal on their current property. If you decide you do want to stay we would arrange for a new Tenancy Agreement to be drawn up and signed before the Christmas holidays. It could be that you wanted to stay with Kensington Property Limited but wanted to move to a smaller property. In this case, we would arrange any viewings required as soon as possible so that you could secure the property before the letting season starts in earnest in January. There is no new Deposit payable for people staying on or for those moving within the portfolio.
Yes, all our properties have a current Gas Safety Certificate provided by an approved gas engineer. Please contact us if you would like to see a copy of the GSC.
Yes, we are required to carry out an Electrical Safety Report every 5 years. Please contact us if you would like to see a copy of the ESR.
The Housing Act 2004 introduced the mandatory licensing of certain high risk houses in multiple occupation. The Act was implemented in April 2006 and meant that all properties inhabited by 5 or more unrelated occupants which had 3 or more storeys would have to be licenced with the local council (Leeds City Council in your case). We obtained HMO Licences for all our properties which fell into this bracket. There should be a copy of the Licence in a perspex holder in the hallway/lobby of your property - please let us know if it is not there and we will replace it immediately.
Yes - new government legislation means that as of October 2008 every rented property must have an EPC. The Lead Tenant will have been provided with a copy of the EPC. Full versions of the EPC's are also available to view on our website - just follow the link under your property.
Yes, and it's included in the bills package.
Yes you will need contents insurance for your possessions at the property. It is worth asking your parents to check their household insurance policy to see if your possessions when you are living away from home are covered on their policy first though.
Whilst we don't mind you personalising your rooms, we would have to charge you a reasonable cost for putting right any damage caused to wall coverings. Please pay particular attention to the use of blu-tac which leaves an oil residue behind and will invariably land you with a bill for redecoration. There are alternatives that do not leave a residue behind, we suggest that you use them.