How do student-accommodation companies get away with it?

Croppy Bhoy

I understand that their extortionate prices can be justified by demand, but their general carry on, the way they treat their tenants and the amount they rip them off by is sickening.

Forcing students to pay massive deposits + rent in lump sums in September (when the are also required to pay registration fees, buy expensive textbooks etc) is very insensitive IMO

Then you have the ridiculous fines they charge. Fining students hundreds of euro for having an overnight guest (in the shoddy property they are already paying over the odds for), fining them for damage completely outwidth their control like windows smashed from the outside, damage done to the outside of the building - while I was in student accommodation we were fined because someone removed the number from the outside of the door, which brings me to my final point of excessive fines - €15 for a tiny metal number!

I have since lived in private rentals and never had a problem with landlords. Why do student accommodation get away with this?

Smeefa

Where did you live?? Im in ucd and never come across any of the fines you mentioned, except of course the hugely inflated price of the apartments.

You can have overnight guests free