Victoria Point - Private Halls - Review

Some of you might be thinking about Victoria Point (not to be confused with the nearby Victoria Halls) for accommodation next year. I would not recommend it.

Me and my girlfriend have been living at Victoria Point since September 2013. Although the halls themselves are quite pleasant and decently priced, the management is absolutely hopeless and has left us with a negative impression of the accommodation.

First, the rent - Victoria Point asks for a £95 non-returnable "application fee" when you book a room with them, which isn't entirely unreasonable. What IS unreasonable is the fact that they ask for a rent installment of £1.7K BEFORE the first Student Finance payment, which most people obviously can't afford to pay. Helpfully, Victoria Point will allow you to pay just £500 of the first rent installment, with the remaining £1.2K due when you get your Student Finance - as long as you pay them a £50 "deferment fee" for the privilege. Be careful - your ability to defer the first installment is not mentioned in the tenancy agreement, so they are legally within their rights to ask for a £50 fee, but it's a sneaky business practice.

When I asked what the £50 deferment fee was actually for, I was told it was needed to cover the costs associated with payment processing. Later in the year, I discovered that this is because the landlord of Victoria Point "doesn't believe in direct debits", so the two receptionists have to enter the debit card details of every single tenant in the development into a card machine, one by one, to process payments (never mind the fact that this method of taking payment is ridiculously insecure as it requires you to write your debit card's security code on the application form).

I took issue with the fact that the first rent installment is due before Student Finance comes in, and tried to speak to the landlord - unfortunately, I was told that I couldn't speak to the landlord due to "company policy", and that I could only contact him in writing (I couldn't even get his email address). Eventually I kicked up enough of a fuss for him to contact me, and was accused of being rude to his staff (who had actually been quite rude to me!).

Interestingly, when one of my parents rang Victoria Point to speak to the landlord, reception gave her the email address straight away! So obviously, it's easy enough to get in touch with him, as long as you're not a tenant!

Other negative points:
- Security is virtually non-existent at Victoria Point - I've called Security on a number of occasions due to large groups of students fighting outside at night (a regular occurrence), and was told to call the police because they didn't have any security guards nearby. Adding to your peace of mind is the fact that the main door often doesn't lock when it closes, meaning that most of the time anyone is free to walk into the building. You will also regularly enjoy the sweet smell of weed both inside and outside the building. Bliss.

- The on-site token-operated laundry costs an absolute bomb (£3 for a wash and dry), and the machines aren't big enough to fit a decent amount of laundry in at once. You'll probably end up spending £4 every laundry day, since the tumble driers are useless and need to run twice to dry your clothes. Laundry tokens can be bought from the main reception under the watchful eyes of the receptionists, which means you better plan ahead if you want to do laundry at the weekend (since the office will be closed).

- Parcels are held by reception, but you won't be told if you've got one - you have to go and check to see if you've got one between 9-9:30am or 5:30-6pm on Mondays-Fridays. You don't need to provide ID to collect parcels, so hopefully yours will still be there when you go to collect it.

- The internet is wireless and although it is quite fast you will often find you lose your connection for no reason at all.

- Car parking costs a LOT - £250 for the year, or £2 a day for visitors. Parking permits have to be purchased from reception, so you'll have to plan ahead if you want visitors at the weekend or they'll be hit with a £60/£100 fine (which reception claims to be able to do nothing about).

- Hot water is on a timer - there's no central heating here - so if you're planning on living with a few friends you'll find you will often run out of hot water.

- There is no secure bike storage available. There is a room in the basement where you can put your bike, but there's nothing to secure it to.

- The bathroom and kitchen have no windows, so when cooking the kitchen gets very hot and the bathroom is always very damp.

The only good thing I can say is with regards to the maintenance guys - they've always been decent with me, and have sorted any maintenance problems very quickly. As mentioned before, the rooms themselves are quite nice, but the problems with the management mean that you still feel, somehow, that you're getting ripped off.

Don't be fooled by exceptionally positive reviews you've probably seen on Facebook and other websites - the management runs a competition to win free rent for a year if you write them a good review!