Moving out of student housing

The rules about ending your tenancy for your student housing will be covered in your tenancy agreement.

If you want to leave your student housing early

Your tenancy agreement will tell you:

• if you can move out early
• how much notice you have to give
• how to get a refund if you paid rent in advance.

Most students in student housing have a fixed term agreement. This means that you agreed to rent your accommodation for a certain period of time, such as an academic year.

If your tenancy agreement says that you can’t move out early, you should speak to your landlord. If you give the landlord reasonable warning you might be able to negotiate a reduction on the rent for the full fixed-term period.

Getting your deposit back

If you paid a deposit at the start of your tenancy, there should be clear rules about getting it back.

If the deposit was an initial prepayment or 'holding deposit', this might have been used to pay your rent during your tenancy. You won’t be able to get this back as this was deducted from the total rent due.

If you paid a security deposit, this would have been registered in a deposit scheme and you can apply to get this back at the end of your tenancy. You should contact the deposit scheme provider for more information.

If your landlord wants you to leave

As a student in halls of residence or purpose-built student accommodation, you are usually a common law occupier or tenant and have some protection against eviction.

If your tenancy agreement says how your tenancy can be ended, your landlord can follow this process to evict you.

If your tenancy agreement doesn’t say how your tenancy can be ended, you can only be evicted:

• at the end of your fixed term tenancy
• if you break a term of your tenancy.

You can find more information about being evicted from student housing on the Shelter Scotland website.