[OrangeUK]

Hello all,

Going to cut this whole situation short.

Basically, i will get around £600 a month through loan's and bursaries. My Accommodation (Halls next to the Uni) costs £103 per week and £412 per month. I got an offer for the halls and i have read through the documentation in which it states we will make payments from October 28th 2012 until April 28th 2013. This is 7 months, so to my logic you would calculate the total cost by multiplying the £412 by 7 and this leaves us with £2,884 for the 7 months of rent.

Now, all over my accommodation offer letter it is saying that the cost in total is £4,120. This is ridiculous. This is nearly £590 a month!! We do not need to pay a deposit, etc, etc...

Does anyone have any idea as to why the price is like this? My parents and I sat down to have a look at it, and we have no idea...

If anyone has experienced this sort of thing before, any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[StacFace]

Are you sure you have the dates right? That would be a 26-week contract and I'm pretty sure they are normally around 40 weeks, and the price of £4120 does match up to £103 per week for exactly 40 weeks. Also 28th October seems very late to be moving in and April sounds early to move out too. Which uni and which accommodation is it?

[OrangeUK]

(Original post by StacFace)
Are you sure you have the dates right? That would be a 26-week contract and I'm pretty sure they are normally around 40 weeks, and the price of £4120 does match up to £103 per week for exactly 40 weeks. Also 28th October seems very late to be moving in and April sounds early to move out too. Which uni and which accommodation is it?

Yes these dates are correct, i have them in front of me just now. I realised they sound very late and early too. We can move in on September 1st right through to June 8th.

The thing is, i got an e-mail stating there will be 7 EQUAL payments. The payments are £412 a month.

And even at that, both the E-Mail i have in front of me and the documentation i had to read over all say 7 payments.

It is UWS and their new build accommodation in Paisley.

[InsaneFandom]

How long does it say the contract is for? They're normally somewhere between 39 - 50 weeks. Since 40 x 103 = 4120 I guess that's it. I think they mean the last instalment will be taken out in April, since you pay in advance and the contract will likely end sometime in June or July. Also there's not exactly 4 weeks to a month, so maybe that's where you've gone wrong?

£4120 for a year in halls sounds about right, mine is just under £4000 for the year and it's one of the cheaper options at Sussex.

EDIT: Hm that is confusing, I'd contact the accomodation service if I were you. I think they've worded it wrong though, 26 weeks seems like a really short contract- pretty sure most unis have around 30 teaching weeks so :/

[Iamgoingmad]

My uni is in 3 installments
1st:3472 2nd:2777 3rd:654
and the first installment is more than what im getting with loan and grant


why do they do this? profit

[MarshmallowTea]

Hmm, In my experience, rent per month isn't calculated as rent per week multiplied by 4, you have to work out the rent per day and times that by 30 to calculate monthly cost (or something like that), so not sure why they've done it that way. I'm no expert, so you may want to get that checked, but I'm sure its not weekly rent * 4! Even then, my calculations are not that much....maybe you should ask accommodation office? Do you pay each month? You might not if your contract is actually longer. Do you have your actual contract dates? If they said it was 7 payments at £412 each, then it doesn't add up!! But perhaps you're not paying each month, it might be your entire duration divided by 7 (like, every 6 weeks or something), if that makes sense. I would give them a call, they're usually quite helpful. Might just be a typo on their part

p.s yeah, what people said above sounds about right. If its the same as 40 * £412, then it looks like they probs either calculated the number of weeks wrong somewhere, or made some sort of typo in their letters/emails. You should find out your actual contract dates, as that would probably clear things up for you! You may very well be paying in 7 installments, at a rate of £412 per month, but they might not be paid every month ^^ good luck!

[OrangeUK]

Thanks for the replies, please tell me if i am missing something.

This is from the E-Mail they sent me:

"The first of 7 equal instalments is due on the 28th October 2012"

And this is from the Documentation on the offer:

Lease Starts 01 September 2012
Lease Ends 08 June 2013
Lease Length 40 weeks
Total Rent for Lease Period £4,120.00

"If you are studying at UWS for 2 trimesters you will be on payment plan 2 and have 7
instalments:- 28th October and thereafter every month with the last payment on the 28th April."


So, yes it is a 40 week contract to which i only pay 7 instalments = 7 months at £103 a week. I fail to see how this is adding up to the £4,120 unless i do 40 weeks * £103. But that does not work out the same when you calculate a months cost.

If you do £4,120 (Price of Halls) / 7 (The 7 equal payments) = £588 a month. That can not be right, could get a house for that price never mind a flat shared with 5 other people.

[MarshmallowTea]

Ah yup, that makes sense The 7 installments are spread over 40 weeks, which is about 9 months. So, your not actually paying for 7 months, your paying for about 9 (plus one week) - they just want the money faster! :P So calculation should be (£103/7*30.5*9)+103 = £4,142 (so its approximately correct)

Yeah, halls are actually quite expensive, though bear in mind bills are included £103 isn't too bad, in London, to rent a flat its usually around £170pw now!

[OrangeUK]

(Original post by MarshmallowTea)
Ah yup, that makes sense The 7 installments are spread over 40 weeks, which is about 9 months. So, your not actually paying for 7 months, your paying for about 9 (plus one week) - they just want the money faster! :P So calculation should be (£103/7*30.5*9)+103 = £4,142 (so its approximately correct)

Yeah, halls are actually quite expensive, though bear in mind bills are included £103 isn't too bad, in London, to rent a flat its usually around £170pw now!

Feel quite silly i still can't do this calculation lol.. What would i be paying?:P

[mabrookes]

(Original post by OrangeUK)
Feel quite silly i still can't do this calculation lol.. What would i be paying?:P

You will be paying £588 month. They have made it a bit better by starting in October, this means you will pay £1765 in Semester 1 overall out of your first loan/bursary payments.

It will be harder after Christmas though as you will end up paying about £2354 between your second loan payment in January and third in April! I would start looking into the money issues now; get an overdraft if possible, check how much bursary your uni gives (normally paid in March) and make sure you have enough ready.

[StacFace]

(Original post by OrangeUK)
Thanks for the replies, please tell me if i am missing something.

This is from the E-Mail they sent me:

"The first of 7 equal instalments is due on the 28th October 2012"

And this is from the Documentation on the offer:

Lease Starts 01 September 2012
Lease Ends 08 June 2013
Lease Length 40 weeks
Total Rent for Lease Period £4,120.00

"If you are studying at UWS for 2 trimesters you will be on payment plan 2 and have 7
instalments:- 28th October and thereafter every month with the last payment on the 28th April."


So, yes it is a 40 week contract to which i only pay 7 instalments = 7 months at £103 a week. I fail to see how this is adding up to the £4,120 unless i do 40 weeks * £103. But that does not work out the same when you calculate a months cost.

If you do £4,120 (Price of Halls) / 7 (The 7 equal payments) = £588 a month. That can not be right, could get a house for that price never mind a flat shared with 5 other people.

I think it's the part in bold that has messed things up. It says you have 7 equal installments if you are on payment plan 2 which is for people who are only there for 2 trimesters, also known as terms if that makes things clearer. Your lease dates indicate you are spending the whole year in halls which is 3 trimesters or terms, so you will be on the first payment plan which probably has more than 7 payment dates as you are there for longer.

You can see from the lease date that you will be living there (or able to live there at least) for 40 weeks so you can work out that you are definitely paying £103 a week and no more. When you pay is irrelevant in terms of working out how much you pay per week, if you had to pay it all upfront from the start you wouldn't say they are making you pay over £4k for a week.

Edit: This means to find out what you'll be paying and when you'll need to find out what payment plan 1 is.

[OrangeUK]

(Original post by StacFace)
I think it's the part in bold that has messed things up. It says you have 7 equal installments if you are on payment plan 2 which is for people who are only there for 2 trimesters, also known as terms if that makes things clearer. Your lease dates indicate you are spending the whole year in halls which is 3 trimesters or terms, so you will be on the first payment plan which probably has more than 7 payment dates as you are there for longer.

You can see from the lease date that you will be living there (or able to live there at least) for 40 weeks so you can work out that you are definitely paying £103 a week and no more. When you pay is irrelevant in terms of working out how much you pay per week, if you had to pay it all upfront from the start you wouldn't say they are making you pay over £4k for a week.

Edit: This means to find out what you'll be paying and when you'll need to find out what payment plan 1 is.

There is no payment plan for all 3 trimesters.

[MarshmallowTea]

(Original post by OrangeUK)
Feel quite silly i still can't do this calculation lol.. What would i be paying?:P

Lol, no probs it is a bit confusing..... don't know why they don't just make you pay every month for the entire duration of your lease

Basically, as I understand:

Your monthly rent is £412 (or £103pw). Your lease duration is 40 weeks or about 9ish months. That means, that if you were to pay every month from september till June, you'd be paying £412 each month and in total, £4120.

However, because of your payment plan, you have to effectively complete your £4120 payment early - within 7 months, and not 9. Therefore, you divide £4120 by 7 (since 7 equal payments), to give £588 - which is the amount that will leave your bank account each month between october till april (but this is not the same as your monthly rent, which is still £412). This 'extra' £176 per month over the 7 month period adds up and covers the cost of your rent for the remaining May-June months, where you do not pay. Therefore, think of it like your paying the same total amount as you would normally, but in order to complete your payment early, you need to pay more each month. i.e since your payment is spread over a shorter time, you need to pay more each month to make up for it. But you shouldn't have to pay anything after April. Thus, you're paying £412 per month, but you're paying £176 extra each month so that you can finish your payment early, and don't have to pay in the later months

Imagine: I have a cake shop, and a customer subscribes to my cake shop for 9 months and wants 9 cakes in total over their 9 month subscription period. I can only make monthly deliveries. So, that's one cake per month, right? But then they decide they want to have all their cakes delivered earlier instead, within 7 months - so now I still have to deliver 9 cakes, but I need to do this over 7 months. Therefore, I will need to send 1.28 cakes per month for 7 months, to ensure that they have all 9 cakes by the end of the 7 month period, eventhough their still subscribed to my cake shop for an additional 2 months. So, the 9 cakes is equivalent to your £4120 total rent, 1.28 cakes is analagous to your £588 rent, and 1 cake per month is analagous to your £412 per month rent, if that makes any sense at all! Its a bit of a silly analogy I know.....but maybe it helps a bit? I'm rubbish at explaining things!

[jelly1000]

(Original post by mabrookes)
You will be paying £588 month. They have made it a bit better by starting in October, this means you will pay £1765 in Semester 1 overall out of your first loan/bursary payments.

It will be harder after Christmas though as you will end up paying about £2354 between your second loan payment in January and third in April! I would start looking into the money issues now; get an overdraft if possible, check how much bursary your uni gives (normally paid in March) and make sure you have enough ready.

The OP is in Scotland where they get paid monthly. And there is no standard date for uni bursaries to be paid, mine was paid to me on the 23rd December!

[mabrookes]

(Original post by jelly1000)
The OP is in Scotland where they get paid monthly. And there is no standard date for uni bursaries to be paid, mine was paid to me on the 23rd December!

I didn't notice this, still cant - but I do have an excuse as I don't read as well as I used due to eye sight problems. I only skim (more so than a normal person would skim) so I do miss detail sometimes.

[StacFace]

(Original post by OrangeUK)
There is no payment plan for all 3 trimesters.

Is there not even one that still has the same installment dates but the payments aren't all equal? I would have suggested that it might be that you pay more than one month's worth each time but £4120 doesn't divide by 7 into whole pence.

If not that then I would ring them and ask for an exact breakdown of how much each installment is and when it is due, since £103 per week over 40 weeks doesn't go into 7 equal installments.