Royal Veterinary College (RVC) Student Housing

[CAtoATX]

To any future RVC students,

I am a first year Accelerated BVetMed student at the Royal Veterinary College. I understand that some students will be getting their acceptance letters around this time for the upcoming September 2018 start date.

If accepted, you will have a few options for university-run living accommodations, they are as follows:

College Grove
International Halls
Mary Brancker House
Garden Halls
Emily Bowes Court


I currently live in Mary Brancker House. I have never experienced a more poorly-run living situation in my entire life.

• Our signed lease is 50 weeks. In December (four months after we all moved in), they informed us that they would be kicking everyone out at the week 40 mark so that they could "do renovations," but they still wanted the all of our rent paid in full as if we were staying for 50 weeks. They said they would "refund us" a few months after we moved out. The refund comes out to roughly £1000.00. We informed them that we, as students, would likely need those £1000.00 to put a deposit down on a place for the 10 week gap. They didn't care, and told us that if we did not pay in full we would be in breach of contract and would not be getting our deposits back. Just to add insult to injury, they are kicking us out two days after our June exams.
• There are only 3 washing machines and 3 drying machines for the ~250 people that live here, and at least one is broken down at all times. On top of that, it cost £4.70 to do a load of laundry. The dryers are all terrible, so we usually end up hanging our clothes all over our room anyway.
• As of today, the internet has been out in our flat for 6 DAYS. They were suppose to send someone to take care of the problem but "their records show someone will be out tomorrow." They have told us that 2 days in a row now. There seems to be no end in sight.
  
• The building, although located next to a police station, has not deterred homeless people from somehow sneaking into the building and taking up residence on the common room couches. We have had to call the police a number of times.
• The building coordinators wont instruct package delivers drivers not to drop packages in the common area when reception is closed. The drivers will just leave packages at the door, where they can be stolen. Packages have indeed gone missing.
• The neighborhood is dodgy. You cannot walk to school with your phone out in your hand because men on motorbikes will rush by and swipe your phone clean out of your hand. We've seen it happen a ton of times.
• I opted to pay for my housing in 2 installments of $6,000.00. For whatever reason, they have not attempted to coordinate with the school about making our housing payments due AFTER we receive our student loans. They blindly pulled from our connected credit card accounts. If that wasn't enough, they pulled $12,000 from my account last week, before realizing their mistake. I still have not received my refund due to their over drafting.

While seeming like an good idea if you want to make friends in your program, I strongly urge anyone thinking about living at Mary Brancker house to reconsider. The rooms are tiny, the showers are 1'x1', the internet is always spotty (even when its actually working), and the building managers don't seen to have any idea how to run a student-housing facility. It's incredibly easy to make friends at the RVC, so please don't let the idea of private housing scare you into living here.

I have never been more frustrated in my life.

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[LabLuv004]

To any future RVC students,

I am a first year Accelerated BVetMed student at the Royal Veterinary College. I understand that some students will be getting their acceptance letters around this time for the upcoming September 2018 start date.

If accepted, you will have a few options for university-run living accommodations, they are as follows:

College Grove
International Halls
Mary Brancker House
Garden Halls
Emily Bowes Court


I currently live in Mary Brancker House. I have never experienced a more poorly-run living situation in my entire life.

• Our signed lease is 50 weeks. In December (four months after we all moved in), they informed us that they would be kicking everyone out at the week 40 mark so that they could "do renovations," but they still wanted the all of our rent paid in full as if we were staying for 50 weeks. They said they would "refund us" a few months after we moved out. The refund comes out to roughly £1000.00. We informed them that we, as students, would likely need those £1000.00 to put a deposit down on a place for the 10 week gap. They didn't care, and told us that if we did not pay in full we would be in breach of contract and would not be getting our deposits back. Just to add insult to injury, they are kicking us out two days after our June exams.
• There are only 3 washing machines and 3 drying machines for the ~250 people that live here, and at least one is broken down at all times. On top of that, it cost £4.70 to do a load of laundry. The dryers are all terrible, so we usually end up hanging our clothes all over our room anyway.
• As of today, the internet has been out in our flat for 6 DAYS. They were suppose to send someone to take care of the problem but "their records show someone will be out tomorrow." They have told us that 2 days in a row now. There seems to be no end in sight.
  
• The building, although located next to a police station, has not deterred homeless people from somehow sneaking into the building and taking up residence on the common room couches. We have had to call the police a number of times.
• The building coordinators wont instruct package delivers drivers not to drop packages in the common area when reception is closed. The drivers will just leave packages at the door, where they can be stolen. Packages have indeed gone missing.
• The neighborhood is dodgy. You cannot walk to school with your phone out in your hand because men on motorbikes will rush by and swipe your phone clean out of your hand. We've seen it happen a ton of times.
• I opted to pay for my housing in 2 installments of $6,000.00. For whatever reason, they have not attempted to coordinate with the school about making our housing payments due AFTER we receive our student loans. They blindly pulled from our connected credit card accounts. If that wasn't enough, they pulled $12,000 from my account last week, before realizing their mistake. I still have not received my refund due to their over drafting.

While seeming like an good idea if you want to make friends in your program, I strongly urge anyone thinking about living at Mary Brancker house to reconsider. The rooms are tiny, the showers are 1'x1', the internet is always spotty (even when its actually working), and the building managers don't seen to have any idea how to run a student-housing facility. It's incredibly easy to make friends at the RVC, so please don't let the idea of private housing scare you into living here.

I have never been more frustrated in my life.

I second EVERYTHING here. It is so ridiculous that they are a student housing company that can't seem to get their stuff together! The fire alarm this weekend went off for an hour and then multiple times all night because they didn't have anyone on call who knew how to fix it. The poor resident coordinators (students) were told by Unite someone would be out in a few hours! They saw no problem with us all standing around listening to a fire alarm go off all night. This place may seem convenient but it is overpriced and a giant headache.

The payment thing is unreal. The best part is they won't even be refunding us until everyone on our payment plan (like the entire building) is paid in full. I don't know how that is allowed since I signed my own lease, not everyone else's. When questioned, they made it see, like they were doing us a favor by refunding us in the first place!

College Grove seems to be much better, but Mary B is a joke. Reconsider if you are planning to live here.

 

[RedLauren]

Wow. I’m sorry you had to deal with that but I’m really grateful that you’re sharing this. This confirms that I will definitely be living off campus..

 

[DVMdreamcometrue]

Wow, that sounded terrible 😱
Is this community affiliated with the university in any way? Or is it just some private company leasing out rooms to students?

If it has some ties to the university directly, can you complain to the university administration? May be then the university can stop some of their unreasonable demands (like kicking you out but still requires you to pay in full). Even if not, at least the university knows how bad this community is and will not refer students to live in there anymore.

 

[CAtoATX]

Wow, that sounded terrible 😱
Is this community affiliated with the university in any way? Or is it just some private company leasing out rooms to students?

If it has some ties to the university directly, can you complain to the university administration? May be then the university can stop some of their unreasonable demands (like kicking you out but still requires you to pay in full). Even if not, at least the university knows how bad this community is and will not refer students to live in there anymore.

Unite Students (the company that runs Mary Brancker House) owns several properties all over the city. They are used by many schools. Emily Bowes court is also run by Unite. Theres nothing we can do this year, but I have spoken to the Student Union about rethinking their student housing contracts for next year.