Student House Checklist UK: What to Check Before You Sign

Landlords in the UK are legally required to provide certain safety documents. These are not optional extras or things you politely request. You have a right to them.

A valid Gas Safety Certificate must be available for the property. Ask to see the current one at the viewing. If the landlord cannot produce it, that is a disqualifying red flag. Walk away.

An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) must also be provided. Check the date on the report to ensure it remains valid. Do not assume the agent has checked this.

You should also confirm the property has working smoke alarms on every floor and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a solid fuel appliance, as these are the landlord's responsibility to provide.

Ask for all three documents in writing before you hand over any holding deposit. If you encounter hesitation, that tells you something about how the rest of the tenancy will go.

For a fuller breakdown of what your tenancy agreement should include alongside these documents, the Student Tenancy Agreements UK: What to Know guide covers the legal obligations in detail.

Viewing a property is not the same as inspecting it. Most students look around the rooms and note whether they like the furniture. That is not enough.

Work through this during your viewing:

Heating and hot water. Turn on the shower. Run it for two minutes and check the pressure. Turn on a radiator and feel whether it heats evenly. A cold bottom half means trapped air or a failing radiator. A boiler that takes five minutes to produce hot water in summer will be a problem in winter.

Damp and mould. Check the corners of bedrooms and bathrooms. Check behind wardrobes if you can. A faint smell of damp in a furnished room often means the problem is hidden behind furniture. Photograph anything suspicious before you leave.

Windows and ventilation. Open every window. Check the seals. Single-glazed windows in a property you are paying above-average rent for means high heating bills. Check whether there is an extractor fan in the bathroom. Properties without adequate ventilation develop mould within one academic year.

Appliances. Test the oven, hob, washing machine, and fridge. If an appliance is included in the tenancy and it fails during your stay, it is the landlord's responsibility to repair it. Get confirmation in writing of which appliances are included.

Furniture condition. Check mattress condition and frame stability. Check sofa frames, not just cushions. Photograph everything with timestamps the day you move in. This is your evidence if the landlord disputes your deposit at checkout.

The 2025 Unipol student house-hunting survey found that many students revised their budgets mid-search because they underestimated running costs (Unipol, 2025). A poor-condition property with an ageing boiler and single glazing will cost you more in bills than a slightly more expensive well-insulated one.

Security gets overlooked because students are often viewing multiple properties quickly and security is invisible when it is working. It becomes very visible when it is not.

Check the front door lock. A five-lever mortise lock or a multi-point locking system offers substantially better security than a basic Yale latch. Ask whether the locks were changed between tenancies. This should be standard practice. Many landlords do not do it unless asked.

Check all ground-floor window locks. Open each window fully, then check whether the lock engages when closed. Broken window locks are one of the most common omissions on pre-tenancy inventories.

External lighting matters. Properties with no lighting on the front path or back access points are more vulnerable. Note whether there is a burglar alarm and, if so, whether the landlord will give you the code and instructions.

For shared houses, also ask about the communal entry system if there is one. A secure front door loses most of its value if the communal hallway door is propped open.

Student contents insurance typically requires certain minimum security standards to be in place before it will pay out. Check your policy requirements before you sign the tenancy.

"Bills included" is not always the financial advantage it appears to be. Sometimes the rent is inflated to cover a generous all-inclusive package. Sometimes there is a usage cap above which you pay extra. Read the clause.

If bills are not included, you need to calculate total monthly outgoings before you agree to the rent. The categories to price out are: gas and electricity, broadband, water, and contents insurance. Do not estimate. Get actual quotes.

Broadband speed is worth checking specifically. Student houses often have multiple people streaming, gaming, and attending online lectures simultaneously. Ask the current tenants what their download speed is. A house with six students on 20Mbps broadband will cause arguments.

For properties where you are splitting bills between housemates, set up a system before you move in. Establishing a clear method to manage shared household expenses, including utilities and internet, ensures everyone knows their responsibilities. Having a dedicated bill-splitting process agreed upfront removes a significant source of housemate tension.

For a detailed approach to dividing costs fairly, the Splitting Bills Student House UK: Fair Guide covers the practicalities of shared bill management.

Proximity to university is the obvious criterion. But location assessment goes further than a single walking-time measurement.

Check the route to campus at 9am on a weekday, not on a Sunday afternoon. A road that looks quiet on a viewing day may be gridlocked during term time. If you are relying on a bus route, check whether that service runs on the timetable you need.

Check the nearest supermarket. A 25-minute walk to the closest shop is a different experience in October versus February. Note whether there is a 24-hour pharmacy nearby. Check where the nearest GP surgery is and whether it accepts new student patients.

For students living in shared houses, proximity to the other housemates' departments matters too. If you are in the science faculty and your housemates are in the arts, a midpoint location between the two campuses reduces commute friction.

Noise environment is worth assessing. Visit the property on a weekday evening as well as during the day if you can. A house next to a main road or near a bar district will affect sleep and study. That is not a preference issue; it is a productivity issue.

Martin & Co (2024) found that verifying transport links and local amenities is one of the most consistently overlooked steps in student property viewings. Most students remember to check commute time to lectures. Few check commute time to the library during exam season, which is often different.

The most well-maintained property with perfect bills and great location will become miserable if you are living with people whose habits conflict with yours.

Do not assume compatibility because you got on at the accommodation fair. Living with someone is different from socialising with them. Before you commit to a house together, have explicit conversations about: sleep schedules, guests and overnight stays, cleaning standards and responsibility, noise levels during study periods, and shared food arrangements.

If you are still finding housemates rather than moving in with existing friends, compatibility matching matters more than convenience. Roome helps students find and connect with compatible housemates during the onboarding process. All accounts are verified through university email credentials, so you are only seeing genuine students.

Roome also provides group chats and house groups so you can coordinate searches together, agree on properties collectively, and discuss logistics before anyone signs anything. You can filter property searches by distance, price, and number of bedrooms directly within the app.

For more detail on finding the right people to live with before you lock in an address, see How to Find Housemates for Uni in the UK.

Getting housemate compatibility right before you sign is cheaper than trying to fix it after.

Some issues found during a student house checklist UK walkthrough are negotiable. Others are not.

These are non-negotiable:

No Gas Safety Certificate. A landlord cannot legally rent a gas-equipped property without one. This is not an oversight; it is a legal breach.

Visible black mould in multiple rooms. This is a health issue, not a cosmetic one. Mould that has spread across walls or ceilings indicates a structural damp problem that surface cleaning will not fix.

Pressure to sign immediately. A legitimate landlord or agent will give you time to review the tenancy agreement. Any pressure to sign on the same day as the viewing is a manipulation tactic. Student properties do not move that fast in most UK cities outside of the most competitive markets.

Missing inventory or refusal to provide one. An inventory protects both you and the landlord. Refusing to provide one almost always means the landlord intends to dispute your deposit at checkout.

Vague answers about who manages repairs. Ask directly: if the boiler breaks at 10pm on a Friday, who do you call and what is the response time commitment? If the answer is vague, your winter comfort depends on goodwill rather than obligation.

These are negotiable: missing lightbulbs, minor scuffs on walls, small appliances that need replacing. Get any agreed repairs confirmed in writing before you sign.