Accomodation fees

Hi there

I'm living on campus at the moment and the cost is £4650 a year. My mum is a single parent. She earns a good wage so we were told she would have to pay for the accomodation costs. I'm only 16 so can't get a loan or bursary to help towards the costs. My mum is paying back her own student loans and private rental for our house, and has credit card debts from when she went to uni a few years back, so has very little money left each month.

When I started college last August we handed in a direct debit form for £512 a month to pay for the accomodation. The college told me to apply to the hardship fund for money to help toward this which we did, and were awarded £100. A month later one of the tutors said that everyone should apply again as there was still money left in the pot. I applied again and didn't hear anything. A couple of weeks ago my mum checked her bank account and nothing has been taken off for accomodation since the start of college. My mum isn't exactly great with her finances and thought the money had been getting taken off each month. Turns out nobody has had any money taken off so far.

My mum contacted the college and was told it would be looked into. Today I've had a letter through asking for £4650 to be paid by the end of February.

I wanted to ask if anyone knows if they can demand all of the money now, when they were the ones who failed to set the direct debit up 6 months ago? There's no way my mum or I can afford to pay that. We could pay what would have been expected each month going forward, but not all of the backdated amounts. Any advice from anyone?

Thanks

Thanks 999 tigger.

For the direct debit, we gave the form to the college on the day I started and they should have given it to the college's bank to be set up, but didn't do it.

I never got a reply for my second application for the hardship fund. One of my tutors had the form as they have to write a recommendation on it, then they pass it to finance. We didn't hear back after the tutor had it.

Just before we did the form for the hardship fund my mum spoke to finance and asked what would happen if she literally couldn't afford the accomodation costs as she knew she wouldn't be able to pay them in full. They said not to worry, and that the college do everything they can to keep someone on the course and that we should do the form for the hardship fund, which is what we did. I think my mum thought that maybe we hadn't been charged because we'd put the form in, but then we found out a couple of weeks ago that nobody had been charged.