January 2025 by I R
Matt and his team will make sure you're looked after ?
November 2024 by Laura Drage
Very happy with the service Student Housing Lancaster have provided!
September 2024 by Jude B
From my experience renting a house from Student Housing Lancaster, it is awfully managed and has no place being a student housing agency or for that matter a housing agency at all.
From repeatedly failing to deal with issues that were reported many times as well as lengthy waits on the rare occasion that they did sort out an issue. I cannot stress enough how badly run the company is, the system they use for reporting issues is shocking, as well as actual contact with the team themselves. They reply to your issue reports saying that they will sort the issues and months later the issues still remain. Even when following up on the issues it required multiple complaints to them before they eventually act on it.
Additionally, during my time in one of their properties, one of my housemates at the start of the year left and was replaced, but he left a few large items of rubbish which the housing agency said they would remove, whilst they removed some they didn't remove all of it despite all of it being left together and come the end of our tenancy they have tried to charge us from our deposits for the removal of the stuff that THEY left there and we repeatedly asked them to remove.
They will try anything they can to take away as much of your deposit as they can in our case they tried charging us for a broken lock on a bedroom door that never had a lock from the start of our tenancy.
The system they use for reclaiming your deposit is also extremely bad and only allows the lead tenant to make the claim back for the deposit, submit any evidence or question anything that they try to charge you for.
All in all it is an awful housing agency that tries to exploit vulnerable students that are new to the world of renting houses whilst providing the absolute minimum service that they can. I cannot stress highly enough how bad this company is to rent from, you could find anywhere else better than here to rent a house from, even with your eyes closed.
August 2024 by Erin M
As a student new to renting, navigating your rights can be extremely difficult and often not done correctly due to lack of experience and guidance. Our experience with Student Housing Lancaster and a private landlord was abysmal. The property we rented was in poor condition for all of our tenancy, despite multiple warnings from the council to the landlord about the state of the house (the safety of the decking and stairs - they were fixed months later). Issues such as a leaking roof, mold, and water damage remained unresolved for months, impacting our living conditions.
We faced multiple challenges, including being unable to access parts of the property we paid for, sleeping on a sofa for days due to the state of the bedrooms, and dealing with mold in a room where water dripped from the ceiling. Unfortunately, no rent reductions or compensation were offered, and our attempts to get support from the Property Redress Scheme (PRS) were unsuccessful since our landlord wasn?t legally required to be registered.
Despite Student Housing Lancaster being accredited, they did not disclose the limitations of renting from a private landlord and provided minimal support when issues arose. (only rent from lancaster university homes approved agencies) We encountered various problems, such as scaffolding, mold, and harassment from contractors employed by the landlord. Disturbingly, one contractor made an inappropriate comment towards me, and even after informing the landlord, the contractor was rehired and allowed them to come without any notice (multiple times).
Our concerns were communicated to Student Housing Lancaster on multiple occasions, but the support was lacking after the contract was signed. This situation highlighted a lack of standards for properties advertised through them. We dealt with numerous breaches of contract, including health and safety issues, no notice for contractors, disclosure of personal information and much more.
We are now pursuing further action due to the significant impact these conditions had on our lives. We believe it is important for other students to be aware of these experiences and save themselves the pain and struggle of even having to interact with student housing lancaster.
(As of now, we are still waiting to receive our deposit back, despite leaving the property in a better condition than we found it.)
March 2024 by John wong
As a landlord have been dealing with them for the past 10 years and so far so good
March 2024 by Dominic Jefferies
Genuinely the worst housing company I?ve let with. There is a reason they don?t have a Lancaster University Homes stamp because they?re absolutely awful at managing their properties.Compared to my new agency, where any faults have been dealt with swiftly, my old house was left to rot. Moved in with rotten food from 2015 back in my second year and a back garden full of trash. Our tv literally never worked the whole two years I was there because they never fixed it.By the end of third year our sofa had deteriorated, they?d painted over a mould patch that reappeared to no one?s surprise and my room had the largest damp patch known to man.Appalling company. They need to learn how to manage their properties.
November 2023 by Charlie P
Consistently poor management from this agency. They don't respond to emails or even to formal complaints letters that we are contractually obliged to serve on them. There's a reason the Student Union representative we spoke to told us that she would never approve SHL for university accreditation. RENT WITH LITERALLY ANYBODY ELSE, SAVE YOURSELF THE TROUBLE.In response to their reply:I'm fully aware that they don't manage the property. It doesn't change that on the several occasions we have emailed to them about topics they do handle (e.g. the letter we sent to them, which we chased up by email and by phone), they have ignored us. We have had to take the initiative every time - they never called us about the letter, it was the other way around.The letter we sent detailed explicit instructions to email us for the evidence of our claims. There was too much to send in a physical letter so we wanted to provide a cloud document, but the agency never requested their information.They also like to throw 'defamation' and 'slander' at negative reviews, but if their goal is to intimidate their customers then it's unlikely to work.I have sent them an email in private but it remains to be seen whether they will bother to reply.
October 2023 by Lucy M
Literally the worst company I?ve ever gone with for housing. Firstly it?s October and we?ve only just got our deposit back. I had tried to contact the company over five times and got nothing back, even phoning them. During the year it took weeks for most repairs to be fixed. There was also a flat below ours and we were told that we would have access to that in part of our contract, we didn?t and in fact they rented the place out separately. We were not informed of this and came home one night to find people moving in below us. Would definitely not recommend this company as it?s not worth all the hassle especially when you?re a busy uni student
October 2023 by KyleWestripIII Westrip
The worst company I have ever rented with. Denied us our deposit at the end of the year despite the house being in a catastrophic condition when we moved in. Openly discusses personal details of residents in the review section. Avoid
July 2023 by Nathan Shoesmith
SHL were happy to answer questions and help with any issues that arose.
April 2023 by Sandy Norrie
Use extreme caution when dealing with, don't believe website as they'll tell you something different despite having screenshots.Not willing to discuss anything, decide they are always right and everyone else in the wrong even when they weren't in a meeting.
April 2023 by Bridget Walden
Without a doubt the worst company I have ever rented with. In fact, the worst company I have ever dealt with full stop.As other reviews have said, they don't seem to check their properties. In fairness they are only an agent but this is still poor form from them. I know people renting with SHL and they have mostly told me the house was dirty or not in a good state of repair.If there is an issue and you disagree with them they will immediately hang up. They say that people shout at them, but in reality the staff raise their voice. This forces you to speak loudly in order to be heard and then they cry harassment.They are impossible to deal with. The only way you will get anywhere is by escalating things.Embodiment of everything that's wrong with renting as a student
November 2022 by Eliot Snowdon
My experience with SHL was very mixed through 2021-2022. Upon moving in, the house remained dirty from the previous tenants and contained many broken or damaged appliances or fixtures (which SHL were aware of as they were logged in the inventory). Maintance for small damage ran through SHL cannot be faulted, as they fixed most things as asked. Issues arose for contractors or larger damage that needed landlords approval. This took many many weeks to solve any problem or complete disregard for any professional opinion if it was not a cheap solution. (E.g questionable wiring of an oven and 4 attempts to fix a broken 1980s boiler, which left us with no heating in the middle of december). Customer service was a mixed bag with sometime feeling very helpful and welcoming and others rather hostile and defensive. I feel the landlord SHL represented had no regard for any hazard or danger we presented. All in all I would not reccomend SHL to other lancaster students, although if the house signed for was of a decent standard to begin with, this review would be very different.
October 2022 by Andreea Iulia Ionita
I had the worst experience with SHL and continue to do so. From the beginning, they sent us a contract with incorrect rent prices, then a few hours before my flight to Lancaster when I was supposed to move into the rented property, they told us that the landlord has backed out. They did find another property for us (which we had no saying in if we are fine with it or not), but never sent us a new contract which later caused problems for my housemate because she needed that contract for her new job (she contacted them for weeks regarding the matter but they didn't respond).There were two of us in a four-bedroom house and we were aware that they find another tenant to move in, but we did not expect for a stranger to suddenly ring at our door in the middle of the night saying that she now lives with us, but SHL gave her a faulty key so she cannot get in (you can imagine how creepy that sounds even if she didn't lie). When confronting SHL, they just told us that they forgot to let us know.Our contract ended and I have been emailing and calling them for two months now trying to get my deposit back with no response. They did answer the phone twice, but told me to just end them an email to which, surprise, they never responded. A few weeks ago I got an email from Mydeposits requesting me to pay 260£ which were asked by the landlord. I have talked to the landlord and he said that he never requested any money. (On Mydeposits another name instead of our landlord's appears, which I do not understand why).On one of the 2 times SHL responded, after hanging up the phone on me when I asked about the deposit because they suddenly "couldn't hear me". They eventually addressed the 260£ issue, saying that we have exceeded our heating allowance. (We would only turn on heating for a couple of hours when we woke up, and a couple of hours when going to bed and even that wasn't enough because it was really cold in the house). They of course told me to just send them an email when I tried to discuss it further with them and again, no response after that. I am still trying to reach them with no success and I still haven't received my deposit money back.
October 2022 by Jade Lamond
Please, if you want a nice uni year, do not use STUDENT HOUSING LANCASTER. I would give 0 stars if I could, they have lots of bad reviews for a reason!We have experienced so many issues such as incorrect prices on printed on our rent, them not telling us things then expecting us to magically know, our house being broken into and burgled and them barely showing any care or support, not giving us wifi for 3 WEEKS AND COUNTING!!! We still do not have wifi and they are barely helping us fix the issue. They are also extremely rude and nonchalant on the phone, they ended the phone on my housemate because she slightly raised her voice. They do not answer any of our emails anymore.
