UCL offers £132 in compensation to students at Hawkridge House and Campbell House, amid protests that building work has prevented them from studying

International students are withholding their rent from a top London university over claims that building work around their halls made it impossible for them to study.

The University College London Union says international students form the majority of about 60 tenants taking part in a month-old rent strike. They accuse the university of breaching the student accommodation code with months of building works.

Last week, UCL sent letters to strikers threatening to block their graduations and throw them off their courses if arrears were not paid – a position it reversed after union officials pointed out that such sanctions were illegal.

The university has since claimed the letters were sent out by mistake. The involvement of international students in the strike is deeply embarrassing for UCL, which labels itself “London’s Global University”.

Complaints centre on the UCL-run Hawkridge House, Kentish Town, and Campbell House, near Euston. Linda Salvesen, a 30-year-old engineering student from Norway, moved out of Hawkridge House at the beginning of this month.

She said she is withholding around £400 in rent after continuous disruptions – including workmen walking past her window all day long and a rodent infestation – made it impossible for her to stay while she completed her master’s dissertation.

“It’s kind of ruined my experience of London. I’m an international student, I might only be here for 12 months and I had to live in a dump,” Salvesen said. “Once I was standing in the kitchen cooking and a mouse ran into my leg. I’m not afraid of mice but that was a little bit freaky. You want the kitchen to be nice and clean.”

Andrés Morales Interiano, from Costa Rica, is still in Hawkridge House. The Slavonic and Eastern European Studies master’s student said some of his housemates had seen rodents climbing in through the windows from the scaffolding surrounding the building.

“You can’t really enjoy the time in your room,” he added. “Having people walking around, you can’t open your window or feel completely free or private even in your own room.”

Morales, who is withholding the whole of his final term’s rent, said he felt let down by UCL. The university had offered a payment of £132 – one week’s rent – in compensation for the disruption, he said.

“We are not going to pay until we get proper compensation,” he said. “What they offered is one week, but we don’t think that’s at all fair because the disruption has been going on more than one week.”

UCL Defend Education (@UCLanticuts) Shame on @UCLResidences for victimising #UCLRentStrike! Drop all sanctions & meet the demands of the strike @NCAFC_UK pic.twitter.com/LH8rAXOXrg

Builders had been on the site since at least September, the beginning of term, both students said. Over Christmas the building was surrounded with scaffolding and coated with a white sheet, blocking much of the light.

“It was noisy while they were doing that and then they started drilling in the walls when that was done,” Salvesen said. After complaints from students, UCL paused building works during the exam period. But they resumed at the beginning of this month.

There was added fury at the end of last week when rent-striking students received letters from the university threatening them with academic sanctions if they failed to pay their rent. Letters from the site manager warned: “If the account remains outstanding and you are a first year or returning student you will not be able to re-enrol until any outstanding debt to UCL is cleared.

“Furthermore if you are a finalist and your outstanding balance is not cleared before the end of the term your results will be withheld, your degree will not be reported and you will not be able to attend your graduation ceremony.”

UCL on Wednesday told the Evening Standard the letters had been sent in error. Strikers received messages on Thursday telling them they had received “routine debtors letters” that did not apply to those seeking compensation.

The email, forwarded to the Guardian, said: “I am writing to confirm that no student at Hawkridge House will be evicted or face academic sanctions at this stage. Students will have received routine debtors letters, sent to those with outstanding accommodation fees. However as indicated to the Student Union anyone involved in a compensation claim will not be subject to these sanctions until the process is finished.

“Please note that if a student is a debtor they will not be able to move into summer accommodation, as offers will be withdrawn.”

David Dahlborn, UCLU’s accommodation representative, said the university has been breaching the student accommodation code, which says “wherever possible your university or college should arrange for repair and maintenance work to take place outside key exam times”.

“The noise and disruption was in fact constant and more or less permanent once works were ongoing,” Dahlborn told the Guardian. “The works at Hawkridge would, according to the initial information offered, be over in January.

“As it turned out, the works and scaffolding only truly began in January and are projected to run until September, straight through the most important dissertation-writing period.”



Dahlborn added that the volume of the works at Hawkridge House had been measured at 94 decibels, about as loud as a subway train at 500ft.

The Guardian contacted UCL for comment but there was no answer from its press office.