University of Auckland halls of residence students have complained about paying for rooms they can't live in during lockdown. Photo / Supplied
University of Auckland halls of residence students have complained about paying for rooms they can't live in during lockdown. Photo / Supplied
The University of Auckland is asking students who are experiencing difficulties in paying holding fees for their accommodation during lockdown to get in contact so they can agree to a way forward.
Resident students at the university have been paying $263 per week since March 30 for rooms they can't live in because of the Covid-19 lockdown.
"It is only through direct discussions with residents that we can understand their preferences and agree a way forward," a university spokeswoman said.
"For authorisation it is important that we hear from the student themselves as they are legal adults with rights and obligations under a contract with us – we are not allowed to ignore that contract because we spoke with their mum."
She said demand for accommodation in halls of residence was very high and explained that the accommodation were allocated on a full-year basis with rent calculated on full occupancy across the year.
"Once the academic year has started we are unable to easily replace students who leave. For that reason students are usually charged up to 25 per cent of their contract if they want to move out," she said.
However, because of the Covid-19 lockdown, the charge had been reduced to four weeks' rent.
"We have also reduced the rent for absent residents to reflect lower direct costs we are incurring, although our costs have actually increased to the requirements for increased cleaning and management of physical distancing," the spokeswoman said.
The matter could not be sorted before the lockdown because the university had no advance notice, she said.
The university's initial priority was to ensure health, safety and wellbeing of students by putting in place arrangements to ensure that we could maintain physical distancing and self-isolating "bubbles" within the halls.
Then it was to help students in residence work through their own decisions over whether to stay in halls or go back to their parents.
"We did not offer advice on whether to stay or go but helped students figure that out for themselves," she said.
"Consideration of a discount for residents who might want to temporarily move out of their hall of residence was not a priority for us during the transition to lockdown."
She said some students have been let out of their contracts even though they had left possessions behind in their rooms.
"But we can only do that through discussions with the student," she said.
However, the spokeswoman said every dollar that goes back to students will be a dollar less to support others at the university.
"We are fully focused on the wellbeing of our students and for that reason we have to think about money because every dollar we give back to a student in a hall of resident is a dollar that we don't have to support other students or to deliver the teaching and learning experience they are here for in the first place," she added.
