Student parties

[Fandajji]

Could a 6 bed student HMO have 6 people socially gathering per room? My nephew seems to think this is fine as a each tenant is a separate household. They'll be having their freshers party as normal and have a "solid plan" of giving everyone a room number to run to if the police turn up.

I can't find any guidance to back me up that this is not ok. I think there's a lot of these planned, they are even trying to arrange a 6 per room bar crawl type thing where 5 move to the next one and then 5 from that one move on and so on.

Basically, HMOs, 1 household or 6 individual households?

Ooo, interesting. I'm sure this won't have been considered and won't be specifically mentioned in the law/rule - it's not as if they've had time to consider all eventualities before enacting it. I reckon it could certainly be argued successfully in order to avoid any sort of fines/prosecution, but of course it's definitely against the spirit of the rule/law/guidance.

I definitely read somewhere that you were considered to be in the same household if you share a kitchen. Trouble is I can't remember if that was a government document or just a university one. I will go and see if I can find it.

They are getting very excited, doing themed rooms and everything and have 4 houses involved. I think I might try and get an invite to the Mexican room if it's legal..

Legally, HMO rooms/tenants are separate households (HMO LL speaking). So unless the Covid laws have addressed this issue specifically, then sharing a kitchen won't make a difference.

Students in university owned flats have to have separate TV licences if they have TVs in their rooms as they’re not considered to be a shared household by the TV licensing people.

Good question. Most university accommodation is 6 individual bedrooms rooms in one “flat”. So technically there could be 36 people all in the flat sharing the kitchen and partying. Rule of 6 will absolutely not stop university parties, but will stop my children seeing their grandparents. So unfair.

Yes I've found it and it was contained in an email relating to student halls. They have several flats on each floor and have said that for their purposes a household will be each flat where students share a kitchen / bathroom rather than the whole floor or block. Makes sense in those circumstances but wasn't an official document.

I feel so sorry for students at the moment. IMO the whole point of university is the endless parties and lots of random snogging (well, it was for me).

@halcyondays

Students in university owned flats have to have separate TV licences if they have TVs in their rooms as they’re not considered to be a shared household by the TV licensing people.

Interesting point!

Yes, it could be different for a student residence. If it's a private HMO though then it's definitely different households, even if all the tenants happen to be students (assuming they all have separate rental contracts).

@Snailsetssail

Good question. Most university accommodation is 6 individual bedrooms rooms in one “flat”. So technically there could be 36 people all in the flat sharing the kitchen and partying. Rule of 6 will absolutely not stop university parties, but will stop my children seeing their grandparents. So unfair.

Seems such a nonsensical situation as I am pretty sure it was mostly this age group that the rules were aimed at in the first place. At the same time some common sense is needed here and if they want to run the risk of being infected and quarantined for 14 days then so be it.

I'm inclined to agree with NotaKaren

Surely we shouldn't be trying to "work a way round" the rules / law / guidance, but should be trying to remember that they have been imposed to prevent this disease spreading ?

Yes, I have a dd about to set off for University. Yes, I understand they will want to socialise. Yes, I 'get' that , at that age we all believed we were invincible. Yes, I know some people will push the boundaries. Nobody is going to be hunting down a group that have that extra person there, the rules are there to prevent the mass gatherings.

they are even trying to arrange a 6 per room bar crawl type thing where 5 move to the next one and then 5 from that one move on and so on

Good God, how did they manage to get into university?

I'm not sure how it would work because I thought it was a 2 household rule? So 6 people from 6 households wouldn't be allowed? Good question though, I don't think there have been any clear rules for this situation.

@katie43210 the 2 household rule has gone, it was replaced by the rule of 6. So you can see 5 people from 5 households, then an hour later see another 5 etc.

Oh. I'm so confused by it all, I do apologise 😊

A local college has a cluster of cases linked to a party.

@Ellmau

they are even trying to arrange a 6 per room bar crawl type thing where 5 move to the next one and then 5 from that one move on and so on

Good God, how did they manage to get into university?

By using their creative thinking as outlined above :)

They had an idea, studied the literature and have reached an evidence based conclusion. Any other circumstances I'd be pretty impressed!

I think the universities are monitoring their campus residents but I can't see much relating to private accommodation.

The government have tried too stop the youth socialising by replacing guidance (2 households) with an actual law that seems to allow them to hold a party for over 30 people! This cannot be right.

We will need to see what the amended legislation says but looking at the previous legislation it is likely to prevent gatherings of more than 6 in a private dwelling house. If that's the case they probably won't get away with it. This is where somebody tells me a HMO isn't a private dwelling house isn't it!

@ThankyouPeter

We will need to see what the amended legislation says but looking at the previous legislation it is likely to prevent gatherings of more than 6 in a private dwelling house. If that's the case they probably won't get away with it. This is where somebody tells me a HMO isn't a private dwelling house isn't it!

Well that can't apply to HMOs. Many HMOs have five or six people living there - as separate households. That means that no one in an HMO of that sort of size would ever be able to have their boyfriend or girlfriend over, or any guests at all. Or they would have to knock on the doors of the other people in the HMO (who often they have virtually no interaction with) to see if they are going to be in that night so they can work out if they can have a guest over. I very much doubt that HMOs have been specifically addressed in any Covid legislation.

@thecatneuterer yes that's a good point and no the legislation didn't specifically mention HMOs at all - just said private dwellings. Interestingly it does give guidance for houseboats! In fairness the legislation I read related to it being illegal to have a gathering of more than 30 so they may well change it when they write it for 6. Who knows though!

We visited a relative who lives in a HMO and shares a bathroom, we did not consider that because other people lived in the same building and also shares the bathroom that we could not visit our relative in case there were other people visiting the other occupants.

I think this is bloody genius to be honest. It's a bit of creative Barnard Castle thinking, isn't it? Dominic Cummings should hire the lot of them.

Regardless of whether they have found a loophole, their idea of one person swapping room and moving to the next so they can mingle and hold a party spread across multiple houses is incredibly irresponsible. They are selfish idiots.

They might count as separate households for the definition of an HMO and the laws related to HMOs but different definitions apply to diffferent laws. I am fairly sure from the point of view of the COVID rule of 6, a household is defined as a group of people sharing facilities ie a kitchen/bathroom ie that house.

If it's a party, I would put money on neighbours reporting them and they risk being fined. The "organisers" of illegal gatherings can be fined up to £10k. They might get away without being fined if it were a genuine misunderstanding of the rules e.g. 1 tenant has 2 guests over because they thought they counted as a separate household but not a blatant, full blown party with 6 guests in every room...

My DC's are at university and the university rules are very strict. On campus, each group that shares a kitchen is one household. Anyone caught breaking the rule of 6 gets a maximum of one warning, a second breach leads to a university disicplinary hearing. They could get sent down if the university finds out about the "party".

But that's just the consequences for them. They might want to do the maths and calculate the difference in risk between their party and 6 people meeting, then consider the consequences for their lecturers and classmates who are following the rules, if they are responsible for an outbreak.