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I was talking to a family friend who was entering second year of university. She was moving from campus accommodation to sharing a rental with three other friends about a mile away from campus for her second year at university. I don't know if she is naive or if this practice is now standard operating procedure. All four of them were required to pay admin fees of 240 pounds each, cool 960 pounds for pretty much no work. then they also had to pay 2 months rent during this summer vacation when the property would be empty. They will move into the property at the beginning of next academic year. The rent is about 320 pounds per month per student without utilities and other expenses. So they are collecting 2560 pounds rent even when the property is empty. So in total they have collected 3520 pounds from the students before they have even moved in. Is this common practice all over the country? I nearly didn't believe it but she assured me that it was very real. She feels a bit railroaded into it as the EAs were very rude when she questioned the admin fees. her friends were not too keen to kick up a fuss as they felt they did not have many other choices as they were a bit late searching compared to other students. Even so, it strikes me as sheer exploitation.