Questions we are asked

A house where every tenant is a full-time student is exempt from council tax for as long as that stays true. If one housemate leaves university the house can become liable, with a discount. On a Fully Managed house we tell the council it is exempt and send you the form; on the other service levels the landlord deals with the council, and you should claim the exemption yourselves as soon as you move in.

Five weeks' rent — the legal maximum under the Tenant Fees Act 2019, or six weeks where the annual rent is £50,000 or more. Your holding deposit is capped at one week's rent, and it counts towards your first payment when the tenancy is agreed. At the end, the check-out report sets out any work needed to bring the house back to the standard recorded at check-in, those costs are proposed as deductions, and once you and the landlord agree the balance is returned. If you cannot agree, The Deposit Protection Service runs a free independent adjudication.

Houses are marketed in October, most groups commit between November and March, and tenancies start in June. Each house goes live on a published day and time that is stated on its listing, so every group sees it at the same moment.

It depends who manages your house. Where we are the managing agent, report it through your tenant portal: it is triaged the same day, usually within a few hours; a genuine emergency — no heat, no hot water, a leak, or anything affecting security — is acted on immediately, day or night; for anything else we instruct a contractor and tell you the booked date as soon as we have one — we do not publish a fixed repair time, because the repair is the contractor's to make and we will not promise what we cannot hold to; and where a part or a specialist has to be ordered you are told the same day, with a date attached. Awaab's Law sets hazard timescales for social landlords and has not yet been switched on for private renting, but on the houses we manage we work to them as our own standard: a reported damp or mould hazard is investigated within 14 days, work starts within a further 7, and within 24 hours where there is a risk to health. Where we collect the rent and your landlord looks after repairs, report it through your tenant portal too: we pass it to your landlord in writing and chase them for a reply, and your landlord arranges and pays for the repair on their own timescales. Where the landlord manages the house themselves, repairs go to them direct rather than through us, and their own timescales apply — your portal says which yours is.

Only through Ground 4A, the possession ground for student houses, and it has conditions. Every tenant must be a full-time student, written notice that the ground may be used has to be served on each of you before you sign, and four months' notice is required with possession falling between 1 June and 30 September. Section 21 no-fault evictions ended on 31 July 2026 and fixed terms ended on 1 May 2026, so every tenancy is periodic from the first day.

Only by a Section 13 notice on Form 4A, with at least two months' notice. Increases are at least 52 weeks apart, and the first is at least 52 weeks from the start of the tenancy. If you think the increase puts the rent above the market rate you can refer it to the First-tier Tribunal before the date it would start.

Ask us and we will tell you the licence position for that house. Oxford requires an HMO licence at three or more occupants forming more than one household, which is stricter than the national threshold of five, so an ordinary student house needs one. This matters to you as well as the landlord: where a licensable house is unlicensed, tenants can apply for a Rent Repayment Order of up to 24 months' rent.

Booked online, one group at a time, and accompanied. There is no queue and no holding deposit to view. Houses go live on a published day and time, stated on every listing.

There is no admin fee, no referencing fee, no check-in fee and no renewal fee — those are prohibited payments under the Tenant Fees Act 2019. What you pay is rent, a holding deposit of up to one week's rent when you reserve the house, and a tenancy deposit of up to five weeks' rent. The Act does allow a short list of other payments where your tenancy agreement provides for them — replacing a lost key at what it actually costs, late rent at up to 3% over the Bank of England base rate, a charge to vary the tenancy or swap a sharer, and bills or council tax where they are not included. Your own agreement says which of those apply to you, and if you are ever charged something you were not expecting, ring us and we will go through it.

That is the landlord's choice on a Fully Managed house, never a default. Each listing says exactly what is included and what is not, so a student is not comparing an inclusive rent with an exclusive one without knowing.

Every deposit is registered with The Deposit Protection Service, the government-approved custodial scheme, and the prescribed information is served, within 30 days of the money arriving. The scheme holds the money, not us.

Cowley Road and East Oxford, Headington, Iffley Road and Iffley Fields, Jericho and North Oxford, Marston, and Botley and West Oxford.

Yes. Oxford Student Homes Ltd is a Propertymark Company Advantage member with Client Money Protection (C0142401), a member of The Property Ombudsman (E03315-0), and registered with the ICO (ZC141643). Company number 16699598.

Fully Managed is 11% of rent collected, minimum £160 a month. Rent Collection is 9%, minimum £125. Tenant Find is 50% of one month's rent, minimum £850. There is a £500 tenancy set-up fee at every level, invoiced when you sign the Terms of Business and charged again each time the house lets to a new group — a group that stays on is not charged. We are not VAT registered, so the figure you see is the figure you pay. The full tariff is on the fees page.

Almost always. Oxford City Council licenses every house shared by three or more people from two or more households: five or more under mandatory licensing, three or four under its additional scheme. That is every ordinary student house. A licence, or a valid application, must be in place before the tenancy starts. Our guide sets out the current fees and licence lengths.

An Article 4 Direction, in force across Oxford since 2012, removes the usual right to change a family house into a small HMO without planning permission. Turning a house into a student HMO in Oxford therefore needs planning consent, and the council refuses it where more than a fifth of the properties within 100 metres are already HMOs. Buying a house that is already a lawful HMO is different from creating one.

The Renters' Rights Act 2025 ended fixed-term tenancies and Section 21 for new lettings. Every new tenancy is periodic from day one. For a whole-house student let the landlord's route to the house back each summer is Ground 4A, which has conditions — including that the tenancy is signed six months or less before the tenants move in. Our Ground 4A guide explains each one.

There is no minimum term and no tie-in. Rent Collection and Fully Managed simply run on, and either of us can end the ongoing service by giving written notice at least 14 days before the next payment date — the agreement then ends on the day before that payment date. Your payment date is the day the rent falls due, because that is the day our fee comes out of it: on a house where rent is due on the 22nd, notice by the 8th ends the agreement on the 21st, and notice after that ends it on the 21st of the following month. There is no exit fee. Two charges are published so you read them here rather than discover them: up to £500 if you withdraw the property before its tenancy starts — you pay for the work actually done, priced from Schedule 1 of our Terms of Business, and never more than that; and a £300 handover charge if management passes to you or another agent part-way through a tenancy, covering the handover work itself. Neither is charged if the reason you are leaving is something we got wrong, and the handover charge does not arise where the agreement simply ends as a tenancy ends. Neither ever comes out of a tenant's holding deposit. Tenant Find has no ongoing term at all — it completes when the tenancy starts, so there is nothing to give notice on. One thing not to confuse with the notice period: if you signed with us online or away from our office, you also have 14 days from signing in which to cancel the agreement outright under the Consumer Contracts Regulations.