Leave or change your room
If you'd like to leave or change your room you have a few options.
Here's how they work and what you need to do.
Contact us
Office hours: Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm (excluding public holidays)
Accommodation Services
Your responsibility
If you're leaving your room or moving to a different one, it's your responsibility to leave it in the same condition it was in when you arrived. See our moving out information to help you remember what needs doing.
Your options
Request to vacate your room
Transfer to a different room
Swap rooms with another student
Eligibility
Under the Terms and Conditions of Residence, you may terminate your accommodation agreement if you withdraw, take a Leave of Absence (LOA), undertake a placement as part of your study programme, or find a replacement tenant who can occupy your accommodation at an agreed date. (You must submit details of the replacement occupier to Accommodation Services who will consider the nominee's suitability before agreeing to the replacement.)
You'll need to get approval from the University before you can terminate your residence contract.
Cancellation fee and notice period
All bookings ended early are subject to an eight week notice period as shown in your residence agreement.
How to request to vacate
If you're considering withdrawing from your course, or going on Leave of Absence (LOA) or requesting to vacate with a replacement tenant:
- You'll need to inform the University that you're planning to withdraw or take a leave of absence and give the necessary documentation for the University to change your student status. (If you are remaining a student but are asking to be released from your accommodation by providing a replacement occupier, see 2b.)
- a) Submit a Request to vacate form, giving the appropriate notice period as shown in your residence agreement (usually eight weeks)
b) Submit a Request to vacate form with a replacement tenant, please include the date that the replacement will be taking over the contract. Please note that the person must be a registered student at the University of York and be the same student type.
If you don't inform us that you are withdrawing or going on LOA, you'll be charged up to the date your student status changes to withdrawal or LOA plus eight weeks.
Request to vacate due to a placement
If you're going on a placement for longer than six weeks as part of your study programme at York, you can request to vacate your accommodation by giving Accommodation Services no less than 8 weeks' written notice. Please note: if you vacate early without approval, you will be liable to pay for the full term of your contract.
Eligibility
If you would like to swap rooms you'll need to find another resident who is the same student type as yourself and is happy to take over your room type.
How to swap rooms?
- Find a student to swap with. As we cannot make changes to room types, make sure they’re happy with your room type and let length. Use our accommodation adverts to help search.
- When you’ve found someone, you'll both need to complete our Request to Swap form. You need to reference the person you want swap with, their name and student ID.
- You need to give us at least one week's notice before swapping rooms. We'll check both forms and be in touch to confirm the swap.
Please note: If you're already living on campus, you'll need to complete a Room Inventory for your new room which will be sent to you via email. This will let us know if anything is wrong with the room and prevent us charging you for damage you didn't cause.
Sub-letting
You are not permitted to privately sub-let University owned accommodation. Sub-letting is a breach of the terms and conditions you agreed to when you accepted your accommodation booking:
- You agree not to transfer your rights under this Agreement or sublet the Accommodation and you also agree not to allow any person to live in the Accommodation other than the persons named in the Booking, or otherwise agreed with us in writing.
You can view your terms and conditions on our contract and policies web page, by expanding the drop-down boxes to find the Residence of contract or terms and conditions for your year of study.
If you are planning to leave your accommodation early, and wish to cancel your contract, you may be eligible to do so by finding a replacement tenant. For us to cancel your contract, your replacement tenant would need to:
- Be the same student type as you (new undergraduate, postgraduate or continuing undergraduate)
- Be enrolled on a full-time University of York course
- Not already have an accommodation booking with us
You can create an advert for your room on our Accommodation Adverts page (University log-in is required). Once you have sourced a replacement tenant, you must notify us with a 'Request to Vacate with a replacement tenant' form, which you can find further up this web page, along with further information.
Why do we do this?
- This allows us to check that the person moving into your room is a suitable tenant.
- It allows us to terminate your legally binding accommodation contract.
- We need to know who is residing in our accommodation for health and safety reasons.
- If you fail to complete the 'Request to Vacate with a replacement tenant' form, and do not terminate your contract with us, you remain liable for payment and damages under our Terms and Conditions.
Contact us
Office hours: Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm (excluding public holidays)
Accommodation Services