February and March are annually known as the house hunting months for students. During this time the students of Bath can be seen standing outside houses all around Bath waiting for landlords to show them around their property in the hope that it will be their new home for the next academic year.
AWARE and the University Accommodation Office work together to try and make this as least stressful as possible, giving advice and information to students about finding a home, signing a contract and moving in.
If you are accessing this page later in the year you will still find a lot of this information useful and you can download the presentation used at the housing forums given by the University Accommodation Office and AWARE.
Click on one of the headings below for information about house hunting.
There are a number of different ways you can find a new home.
1. www.bathstudentpad.co.uk this is the University of Bath's Accommodation
Office's managed database of properties. The new properties ready for the next
academic year will be online from Friday 9th February, more properties will be added a
week later on Friday 16th February. This database is continuously updated throughout the year when new property details are sent by landlords.
2. Message boards there are message boards online at www.bathstudentpad.co.uk
where you can search for housemates or advertise a spare room you may have in a
house you have found. It allows you to list your likes and dislikes to try and match
you up with suitable housemates.
3. Agencies are out there in Bath who will advertise properties to/for students. Be
warned! You will have to pay additional money in the way of agency fees and if the
property is managed by the agency you may incur charges everytime you have to
call them out.
If you missed the Housing Forums Wednesday 30th January then you can download the presentation here. If you have any questions about any aspect of the presentation, looking for a property or a housing contact please contact AWARE.
Housing Forum Presentation Download
AWARE and the Accommodation Office ran some tours of Bath to help people get to know where different areas are and where the student areas are located.
These have now finished, if you are still unsure of which area you want to live in then contact AWARE and we can give you some brief information about different areas.
Once you've found a house you are happy with you will get a contract from your landlord. You are advised to bring your contract to the AWARE Centre where staff, sabbaticals and volunteers will go through your contract with you. They will not approve the contract, they will however explain all the terms and conditions to you to ensure that you understand all the terms and conditions and to make sure that there are no unfair terms in your contract or that there's nothing missing.
AWARE is open 9-5 Monday - Thursday and 10-5 Friday during term time and Monday - Friday 10-4 during vacations. No appointment necessary, however please allow at least 30 minutes for contract checking, last contract will be seen at 4.30pm during term time and 3.30pm during vacations. Please be patient if there are queues.
AWARE has a page with lots of information about living in the private sector and living in Bath. More detailed information about deposits, contracts, guarantors and things to look for when viewing a property are found on this part of the website. http://www.bathstudent.com/aware/guides/housing/