Student Housing Trouble - Is this normal?

Hello everyone - I hope you are well.

Me and my friends are moving into a 4 bedroom house for our final year. Our lease starts in July and we move in September 1st.

The problem is, we are paying discounted rent and utilities (which is common even though it sucks how they exploit students) and the landlord made me aware last week that there are 2/4 residents staying due to medic exams.

While we did agree to be responsible for the utilities for July and August, this agreement was made prior to the revelation that other tenants would be residing in the property and utilizing the utilities between the commencement of our lease and our agreed move-in date. Given these circumstances, I believe it is not equitable for us to be held liable for utility expenses incurred by other occupants during this period.

We are using a organisation called UniHomes for utilities, and asked our landlord to adjust the billing period to better reflect our residency in the property.

They responded simply with this "Correct the tenancy agreement does not get amended to reflect your utility schedule" and want to have a call with me tomorrow.

Also, something worth noting. We originally thought the utility start date could be adjusted - so on the first form they sent with 01/07/24 as the start date, we changed that to 01/09/24 and signed it.

When we all got charged we asked what was going on - they showed us the document we supposedly signed but the date had been changed back.

When I spoke to the letting agent the form was sent to as to how this happened, they said they did it for us as they thought it was an error & 10 month contracts weren't offered and would be more expensive in the long run. So they were able to change a legally binding contract and send it off without us being aware until we were billed according to the changed date. We made peace with the fact we will pay July and August as after speaking to others it was considered normal, but the fact other people will also be residing there is odd.

Does anyone have any advice? I know as students we are essentially powerless to situations like this and not worth the fight but all of it is so fishy.

Any advice?

Thanks for reading!