Is Section 24 going to end student summer discounts?

An issue which has been bothering me is that when national rent figures are worked out by various organisations, what do they do about student rents? As landlords know, students often pay half rents over the summer. However, since the Government launched its war on landlords, most viciously with Section 24, I believe many landlords who would have allowed students to pay half rent during August and September, for example, will no longer be able to do this.

If organisations which publish rent figures purely take monthly rental figures into consideration, the figures could be skewed by missing what could be an 8.3% increase in rents if 12 months’ rent is charged rather than 11 (of course it could also go the other way in areas where it is hard to let).

For myself, I have now made it policy to ask for full rents for the 12 months of the year. The more of us who do this, the more it will become the norm. It is a shame for the students, but we have been forced into such measures by being taxed on fictitious profit. We have to increase our rents wherever feasible.

In addition, it is also easier to up 4 rents from students by £10 each month, than to up the rent on a small terraced house by that, so the rents on my 4-bed student properties are facing annual increases of at least £40pm, whilst my smaller terraces are only being increased by about £10-£15 each April, because of Government policy (previously, I never increased rents). This means that students are likely to effectively end up subsidising other properties in landlords’ portfolios.

• What are others doing about this?
• Do you charge the full 12 months?
• Did you always do this or have you recently changed?

It would be good to get a straw poll on this as it is not being discussed at all, as far as I know.

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