Booking Handbook Students

Housing Booking Instructions for students

University of Copenhagen Housing Foundation

Welcome to the University of Copenhagen! The UCPH Housing Foundation offers accommodation to international students and staff. Our service is optional you are by no means obligated to use the service and you are very welcome to find accommodation on your own. We are an independent cost-based foundation associated with the University of Copenhagen. For details on the UCPH Housing Foundation, including office hours, housing descriptions etc. please see our website: www.housingfoundation.ku.dk. Below you will find a booking manual which, in combination with our website, you will need to familiarize yourself with in order to be prepared to book a residence via our online housing system. We recommend that you read the booking manual in advance of receiving your actual invitation to have a general idea of the system that you have it beside you when you first enter the booking system as well as bringing a print with you so you can easily look up what to do or how to act at a later point in your stay. You can, however, always look it up on our website. We hope that you will enjoy your stay in Copenhagen and will be

happy with the available housing option(s) that you can book via the

UCPH Housing Foundation.

Table of contents

Preparation ............................................................................................................................................................... 4

Beginning to use the Booking system....................................................................................................................... 5

Tenant ID .................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Navigation ................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Confirmation e-mails ................................................................................................................................................ 5

Internet browsers ..................................................................................................................................................... 6

Password................................................................................................................................................................... 6

1 year of service ........................................................................................................................................................ 6

Have you previously lived in one of our residences? ............................................................................................... 6

Contacts .................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Administration .......................................................................................................................................................... 6

Application information............................................................................................................................................ 7

Shared rooms Master and Child relations ......................................................................................................... 7

Girl/boy sharing a Shared room ............................................................................................................................. 8

Housing needs ........................................................................................................................................................10

- Disability: ......................................................................................................................................................10

-Financial need: ..............................................................................................................................................11

- Rental period configuration: ........................................................................................................................12

General Service costs and fees ...............................................................................................................................13

Room selection .......................................................................................................................................................13

- Summary of information: .............................................................................................................................13

- Room availability: .........................................................................................................................................13

-Booking a room that is vacant the same day as the booking day. ................................................................15

-Fixed rental periods .......................................................................................................................................15

-Booking an already selected room: ...............................................................................................................15

-Changing your selection (no previous booking) ............................................................................................15

-Changing from one booked room to another within 14 days of initial booking ...........................................16

No vacancies in your Flow ..............................................................................................................................16

- Room acceptance: ........................................................................................................................................17

Email confirmation of booking not final confirmation ........................................................................................19

Contract ..................................................................................................................................................................19

- Download and print main contract for students ..........................................................................................19

- Download and print main service contract for students .............................................................................19

Updated November 10, 2014

- Print contract specific section ......................................................................................................................20

- Sign and upload contracts ............................................................................................................................21

Specific and general residence handbook required reading ...............................................................................22

Payment ..................................................................................................................................................................22

- Account status: .............................................................................................................................................23

-Account Data .................................................................................................................................................24

- Information about payment .........................................................................................................................25

- Terms and conditions ...................................................................................................................................26

- Online payment ............................................................................................................................................27

-Payment by third parties ...............................................................................................................................29

-Subsequent payments ...................................................................................................................................29

Cancellation ............................................................................................................................................................29

-Cancellation within 14 days of cooling off period .........................................................................................29

-Cancellation after 14 days but before the rental contract has begun ..........................................................30

-Cancellation without having moved in up until 1 month after the first rental day ......................................31

-Cancellation after move-in or more than 1 month after the first rental day ...............................................31

Move in, Keys and your room inspection ...............................................................................................................31

Report your move-in date ...........................................................................................................................31

-Issue report ...................................................................................................................................................31

Extension ................................................................................................................................................................32

Offer to shorten ......................................................................................................................................................34

-specification of shortening offer ...................................................................................................................35

-Shortening date .............................................................................................................................................35

Move out ................................................................................................................................................................36

-survey ............................................................................................................................................................36

-move out and return of keys .........................................................................................................................37

Inspection ...............................................................................................................................................................37

-returning your deposit ..................................................................................................................................38

Preparation

To prepare yourself for using the booking system, please follow the below points to ensure you have a

full understanding of the booking system, rules and options so you can make an informed but quick

booking once you are invited into the system.

Review the Booking Manual for semester students and any pieces of information it directs you to. Also note; when logging into the online booking site you must declare that you have read and understood the content of the Booking Manual.

Familiarize yourself with the information, rules, and various housing options on the UCPH Housing Foundation website. Please make sure you have many options on your mental wish list when you start booking in many of the residences, we only have a few rooms (which may not be vacant). Therefore, you should focus on places where we have over 70 rooms and still keep in mind that targeting a specific area, flat, or hall can easily result in disappointment.

Ensure your own availability at the time when invitations will be sent out. We can only inform you of what week it will be. It is never possible for us to give you an exact time. Also ensure that you have access to a printer and a scanner within 3 days of making the booking, as this is the deadline for signing and uploading your housing contract.

Think about housing funding in advance. The payment of your housing is not dependent on when your personal financial situation as for instance when your home university pays out subsidies

It is important that you enter the booking system and choose a housing option quickly once you

receive the housing invitation. If unable do to so (for instance because of travelling or no internet

access), we recommend that you give a friend or family member access and permission to book a

housing option on your behalf. If you have yet to receive your final university admission or Entry Visa,

you may still book via the UCPH Housing Foundation. However, please note that any contract you

enter into is binding and not dependent on for instance your Entry Visa. If you delay greatly in using

your invitation, the UCPH Housing Foundation does not guarantee that there will be any housing

options left.

It is the UCPH Housing Foundations aim to provide at least one housing option per student. The

system monitors which housing options you have in the booking system. The longer you wait; the

fewer options you are likely to have if you wait too long, there may ultimately not be any options left.

You may choose not to do a booking from any of the option(s) you have. You then take on the

responsibility of potentially having to find housing on your own. However, since alternative housing

can prove very difficult to find around semester start in Copenhagen, the UCPH Housing Foundation

strongly recommends that you do a booking in the system while you have the option to do so.

Students with physical disabilities Please read this information with particular care if you have

special housing needs due to a disability. Students who are wheelchair users are asked to also e-mail

[email protected] as soon as possible, so we can prepare to reserve the available

number of rooms with wheelchair access.


Beginning to use the Booking system

Please use the personal link provided in the invitation email sent to you from the University of Copenhagen Housing Foundation to log in to the housing booking system also called your online Flow. Make sure to always check your spam filter to see if the invitation was caught there. Even though some emails come through, others may still be held back by the spam filter.

You must always enter your online Flow via the personal link; you cannot log on by typing

www.housingfoundationbooking.ku.dk in the address field!. The link is stated in all of the automatic

email confirmations you receive.

Please note that you will not be able to access the booking system before you have received an

invitation by email from the UCPH Housing Foundation. You cannot request to get the link ahead of

others.

Tenant ID

The first time you use your link, the system will generate you a 4-digit tenant ID. Please note

that you cannot get your tenant ID before that time. The ID is used solely for the UCPH

Housing Foundations system.

Please also note that we cannot identify you by your University of Copenhagen admission

number. It is the 4-digit ID number, you must use whenever you contact the UCPH Housing

Foundation.

Navigation

Whenever you have filled in a step (page) in the booking system, you must press SAVE. To save

and continue to the next page; press Next. The system monitors where you are in your booking

process and will bring you to the next expected Step.

After your initial booking, you may find that the system jumps back to an earlier Step than what you

expected. This will typically happen if you are due a payment or are missing a contract upload. The

system will then expect that you intend to complete this step. If not, and you wish to proceed to a

different step than what the system suggests, use the left hand Menu to navigate.

A filled in step will in subsequent overviews usually appear closed (collapsed) in the left hand Menu

to save space. You click on the headline of the step to expand and view the stated information.

Many fields have an i after them, if you hold the cursor here, additional information will appear.

You can refresh your Flow by pressing F5. Please note that the system will bring you to the step

where it has identified that you have something unfinished. If you intend to refresh and stay at a

certain step, please click again on the step in the left hand Menu as this will also refresh the page.

Confirmation e-mails

The system will automatically generate and send an e-mail to you when you complete certain steps.

Please react if there is anything in these e-mails which does not correspond with your expectations.

When you pass such a step again, the system will send an e-mail again even if you have not made a

new action (such for instance as making a payment), it will simply reconfirm the latest action taken

on this step.

Internet browsers

The system requires that you use one of the supported internet browsers. If you do not, then you will

automatically be asked to download Google Chrome. Please keep this in mind if you later have

problems with the system you may have tried to use the system in an unsupported browser. Please

switch back to Google Chrome.

Password

When you receive your invitation link, the first thing you will be asked to do is to create a new

password. Please note that the UCPH Housing Foundation cannot inform you of your password or

reset it. You are required to secure the password in a place so that you can always find it again.

Please make sure to do so even if you currently feel confident that you will be able to remember it.

1 year of service

The goal of the UCPH Housing Foundation is to assist as many international students and staff

members at the University of Copenhagen as possible for their first year in Copenhagen to give them

a chance to get their bearings in Copenhagen as well as an opportunity to place themselves on

waiting lists etc. and look for housing the same way the Danish students do (which is not via any

services by the University of Copenhagen). If you are staying longer than 1 year, please remember to

prepare for having to find housing on your own afterwards.

Have you previously lived in one of our residences?

Applicants who have previously benefitted from our housing services or other accommodation

services connected to the University of Copenhagen are obligated to inform us of this when applying

especially if they have entered into the previous contracts under different names, email addresses or

other alias.

Contacts

For general information, please contact: [email protected]

For payment information, please contact: [email protected]

After move-in only:

For building related problems (fixtures in the apartment such as windows, floors), please

contact the building inspector stated in your Specific residence handbook

For problems taken care of by the UCPH Housing Foundations extra inspector service

(cleaning, furniture, inspections) please contact the building inspector stated in your Specific

residence handbook. When in doubt always ask the UCPH inspector first

Whenever you report a problem, you should attach photos to clarify the issue and state your telephone

number, thank you.

Administration

Before starting the actual booking process, you will have to confirm Study data and your email

address. The Study data reflects whether you have been admitted to UCPH for one or two

semesters. Make sure to tick the Acknowledgement in the bottom of the page. Note that the e-mail

address used will forever be the one which the UCPH Housing Foundation contacts you via. You are


expected and required to keep this e-mail address, to check it on a regular basis, and ensure that it is

possible to contact you via it (inbox should not be blocked or full).

It is preferred but not required that you also write from this e-mail address whenever you contact the

UCPH Housing Foundation. Kindly also state your given 4-digit Tenant ID number for easy and correct

identification. You may well not be the only one with your name in our system. Also, please do refrain

from signing with a nickname, we know you by the official name you apply with.

Application information

Enter your Application information and Address information. It is very important that the information

you state is correct.

Pay special attention to that you fill in the gender (male/female) correctly! If you state the wrong

gender, shared housing options, which are solely available for the stated gender, will appear in your

online Flow. If you book such a room, it may not necessarily be discovered until you and a person of

the opposite gender arrive to enter the shared accommodation. The UCPH Housing Foundation will be

forced to cancel your booking due to wrong information given. It cannot be guaranteed that there will

be alternative options left.

Shared rooms Master and Child relations

The UCPH Housing Foundation has a number of shared rooms and two-person apartments, which

can either be booked by one person booking the entire room/apartment for her/himself (or her/himself

and one other person) OR they can be booked separately by two individuals who each book one half

of the room/apartment.

The UCPH Housing Foundation calls the entire room/apartment the Master and each of the two

halves of the room, a Child. The children are designated by having an A or B after the room

number. Once one of the children is booked, the master becomes unavailable and the other child

can only be booked by a person of the same gender as the person who first booked one of the

children. If, on the other hand, the Master gets booked first, both children become unavailable.

As an example, a Tranehavegrd apartment for two persons can appear in the system as:

22-2L (Master, booking the whole apartment for 1-2 person(s))

22-2L-A (Child, booking half A of the room for 1 person)

22-2L-B (Child, booking half B of the room for 1 person)

If for instance only the 22-2L-A appears in your Flow, it means that another person has already

booked the 22-2 L-B, and so neither 22-2L nor 22-2L-B are available to book.

Girl/boy sharing a Shared room

Couples who want to share a room may need to enter faulty gender information on purpose since the booking system is by default set to have only SAME SEX tenants in shared rooms (one-room residence) and apartments where there is a passing room. In order to book the room as an opposite sex couple, one of you needs to reserve the A part of the residence, and then the other person needs to temporarily change gender status in the booking system to make it possible to get the B part of the residence. While the two tenants look for available shared residences, they must appear as being the same gender within the system. Keep that status (having the same gender) for both of you beyond the step where you accept the residence (because the only the same gender in shared rooms rule is checked by the system again at the time of acceptance and therefore the system would hide the option again).Once the contract is in place for both of you (when the Main contract button appears, but before you open and print the contract) for a part of a shared residence (A and B), change the wrongful gender to your real gender by reloading the step Application > Applicant information > Applicant information in the menu. Changing the gender will reset the step Summary of information just submit it (press NEXT), it will

then update the database with the correct gender, and you will skip the completed residence

reservation. Please see further directions on our website here.

Example of Address information step:

Housing needs

- Disability:

Tick No to this question, unless you have any physical disabilities that will affect your choice of

housing.

If you are physically disabled, you tick yes. Make sure to read the information here before clicking

Yes.

The disability application is divided into 3 categories:

Wheel chair tick this off if you are in a wheelchair

Limited mobility tick this off if you have limited mobility perhaps you suffer from arthritis and

must have an elevator in your accommodation.

Other disability tick this off for any other type of disability perhaps you have a special

medical need for a private bathroom or a private refrigerator in your room.

Next, you upload documentation of your disability. As an example, it can be a previous approval of

your special need from your doctor or home university. Please also include your personal description

of your need (though this should not stand alone).


You proceed with the following steps and make a booking of the currently most suited option. You will

receive an e-mail when your disability application is processed. If approved, you will receive an offer to

be relocated.

-Financial need:

Tick No to this question, if you are not in severe financial need more so than what can be expected

simply from being a student. Make sure to read the information here and in the Booking Manual before

making your selection.

If your financial situation is particularly severe, tick off yes. Upload documentation including a

personal explanation of your situation. Continue with the rest of the application and book the most

suited available option. You will receive an e-mail when your financial need application is processed. If

approved, please enter your online Flow shortly after receiving the confirmation to see if you want to

swap to an alternative option among the cheaper rooms. Any potential new and cheaper housing

options, which may appear in your Flow, will not continue to be vacant indefinitely.

Please note that there are no guarantees that any residences reserved for financially needy students

will be available. Therefore, you should not refrain from booking an available option the first time you

enter the booking system, because you expect your Financial Need application to be accepted.

- Rental period configuration:

If you are admitted for two semesters; in this Step, you can choose to tick off that you only want to

book for one semester of housing to begin with. You will normally be able to extend a booking to cover

the second semester later on, please see the section about extensions.

NB! You will not be able to change the dates in the section Standard semester periods. Also note that


these are not necessarily the dates in which the various housing options are vacant and thus must be

rented from. It is solely a confirmation of which official semester you are booking in.

General Service costs and fees

Please note that it is free to browse in the system but once you book a housing option, you pay a

booking fee as well as other costs paid to cover our services. Some fees are mandatory for all while

others depend on your own actions (such as late payment, failure to cancel etc.). Therefore, you must

be aware of which costs booking and other actions will entail before you act. Please refer to the most

current list on our website whenever you take an action that will entail a cost.

Room selection

- Summary of information:

Check that all information listed in each of the categories is correct. The various points are usually

closed (collapsed); expand them to see what you have stated:

- Room availability:

In this section, you will see which rooms are available to you, and you can make your room selection.

Initially the system will automatically select (and reserve for 30 minutes) the cheapest room available.

The pre-selected room and any room listed below that selection is marked in purple. You may have to

scroll down to see the selected room if there are many options. You can see more information on a

room by clicking on the middle of the row stating the individual room, which will make a new page pop-

up with more details. If you take longer than 30 minutes to book the pre-selected room, it is quite

possible that the pre-selected room has been reserved for someone else in the meantime. The option

will then have disappeared from your Flow when you refresh the page. It is your responsibility to

complete the booking within 30 minutes if you do not do so, it is regarded as a housing offer which

you did not make use of. You are welcome to go back to the availability step to see if you have other

options.

The below test student identity has a fictitious test room available called TEST cannot be booked 1

(which you as a real person should of course never book) as well as two alternative options.

The Tranehavegrd-room in this example conforms to the standard system and standard rental period

- just as almost all of your options will.

You pull the bar, at the bottom of the residence selection window, to the right to see when this room is

vacant/to be rented from, the price of the deposit and the type of accommodation:

However, in a few cases, for technical reasons it may be necessary for us to add informative

notes/exceptions such as is the case with the above University Guest House option. These will

usually be after semester start. In case the room you are interested in, has a NOTE such as the above


University Guest House does, then these dates overrule the dates stated under Available from

further to the right in the window.

-Booking a room that is vacant the same day as the booking day.

Please be especially aware that if you book a room which is vacant here and now (from the day you

do the booking), the various cancellation options you normally have before the start of the rental

contract (described in detail under cancellation) are not relevant. You can only cancel in accordance

with the Cancellation without having moved in up until 1 month after the first rental day rule.

You must therefore be completely sure that you intend to keep this room; you cannot just change your

mind without any cost.

-Fixed rental periods

Any standard rental period will go from either the 1st or the 15th of a month and end on the 14th or the

30/31st (last day) of a month. There is a 4-day inspection period at the end of your rental period, so if

for instance your rental period goes to the 14th, you must move out no later than 10am on the 10th. You

should remember to take this into account when planning your stay.

You rent your housing in fixed non-terminable periods.

In the spring, you can expect most rooms to be available from either 1 January or 1 February and the

fixed end date is 14 July (move out 4 days before).

In the autumn, you can expect most rooms to be available from 15 July and the fixed end date is 31

January (move-out 4 days before).

You are welcome to arrive later and depart earlier than the period your contract is for (keys can be

picked up any time during opening hours after your contract starts) - but the rooms must be

contractually rented from their vacancy date to the fixed end date. This means that you do not save on

the total rental amount by arriving later or leaving earlier and the rent must still be paid on time in

accordance with your payment plan.

The halls of residence and owners of other types of housing will only hold back rooms for students if

the UCPH Housing Foundation guarantees the rent all year round. Therefore, the rooms must be

taken over by the next tenant shortly after move-out, so there are no vacant periods when the UCPH

Housing Foundation would have to cover the rent on tenants behalf which we do not offer.

Otherwise, a service like the UCPH Housing Foundation would not be able to exist.

Also note that if you chose not to book a room e.g. because the available rooms are vacant from an

earlier date than when you plan to arrive , we do not guarantee that any options with a start date which

suits your better, will later appear in your online Flow. . You may in effect have chosen to find housing

on your own.

-Booking an already selected room:

Press SAVE and Next to complete the acceptance of the selected room.

-Changing your selection (no previous booking)

You can change the initial selection by ticking off the radio select button of a different room (looks

like this .) Please make sure to refresh the page shortly before changing a selection, so that you

ensure that you are not trying to change over to an option which is no longer available. Press SAVE

and Next to complete the acceptance.

-Changing from one booked room to another within 14 days of initial booking

If you have made a booking, you can change over to a different room with the same start rental day

without any fees or the like within 14 days of the booking, provided that the rental contract has not

begun. You can change the selection by ticking off the radio select button of a different room. Press

SAVE and Next to complete the acceptance. Please also note that if you use this function, it is

instantly in effect, therefore, you should take great care not to do it by mistake. You may not be able to

change it back.

However, if you want to change over to a room which has a later start rental date, you must first

cancel your initial booking and then you can make a booking with a later start rental date.

If you do not (but just change over using the radio select button); the system will shorten - not cancel

- your initial booking. You will then have a booking in two locations. If you regret having done so, you

can e-mail the UCPH Housing Foundation to request cancelling the short term booking but it will

only be possible if no one else has booked the room subsequently (so that the vacancy date can be

changed back to the earlier date).

Please also be aware that booking in several locations in different periods entails a moving fee,

additional inspection payment - and please do not forget that there is a 4-day interval between move-

out and move-in which you must take into account when making your plans.

The system will automatically change your payment plan and transfer any made payments to the new

booking(s).

No vacancies in your Flow

When there are no vacancies for you to book, your Flow may be empty as the example below.

The system may also state an Error message in red stating that there are no current vacancies. If

you get such a message, please note that it is not a technical error. We understand it may look like a

technical error message - but it is actually a service message. Please read the entire service

message. As stated, there is nothing technical wrong with your Flow.


However, since the system reserves any vacant room for 30 minutes when someone without a

booking logs on, it may well be that there are vacancies which do not appear this instant because they

are currently reserved for another student. If a room is not subsequently booked, it will appear later in

your Flow. Especially during busy times, when many people are logged on at the same time - you

must stay logged on and refresh your Flow on a regular basis to see all vacancies. You will not

necessarily see any/all vacancies if you log on and log off again shortly after.

In addition, since bookings are regularly cancelled (for instance due to that the contract was not

uploaded within 3 days), you should also try again the next day(s) / weeks(s). As soon as a booking is

cancelled, it will automatically appear as vacant in the Flow.

Therefore, especially around the time of invitations being sent out and up until semester start,

vacancies will appear in waves of offers coming into the Flows, being reserved/booked, and

repapering if a booking is not finalized.

Once the semester has started, it is more likely that lack of options in your flow reflects that there

really are no options left, but you can and should still check your online Flow on a regular basis if you

are looking for housing or would like to swap.

- Room acceptance:

You will see now detailed information about the selected room - name of residence, address & room

number, information about key pick-up and payment information.

Read all of this information carefully! Also double check that the closed (collapsed) overview

information is the same as expected (as well as later stated in your contract). If not, please contact the

UCPH Housing Foundation.

Then tick the Acknowledgement box in the bottom of the page.

NB! The room you selected was initially reserved for you for 30 minutes. If you accept the room, it will

be kept for you and you are thus responsible for upholding the terms. You are required to (1) sign and

upload the contract within 3 days and (2) pay on time (please refer to your payment plan as described

later in this Handbook). If you do not, the housing contract can ultimately be cancelled. However, note

that you do not cancel your booking by not upholding the terms - you are simply in violation of the

agreement you entered into. The UCPH Housing Foundation reserves the right to contact any relevant

parties such as the University of Copenhagen, or a home university, or other contact persons if an

agreement is not upheld.

Press Save and Next to continue the booking process.


Email confirmation of booking not final confirmation

The system will send you an e-mail confirmation of the booking. Please note that this is not a final

confirmation of a successful booking. You must immediately check your contract (specific section) to

double check that your booking went through. It can happen that a booking actually failed (usually

because several are trying to book at the same time) but the system erroneously still sends out the e-

mail confirmation. If your Specific Section of the contract does not reflect the attempted booking, it did

unfortunately not go through and you must select a different room.

Contract

After you do a booking, the system will generate two contracts for you which are composed of 3

documents: a main accommodation contract (contains the general terms of the accommodation

contract), a main service contract (contains the general terms of our service contract) and the specific

contract section (contains the specific details of your housing and is a part of both your

accommodation and your service contract). The contracts can be found in your workflow under the

step Contract. You will not receive it via email. Make sure to read the contracts carefully. You have

three days from the moment you do a booking to complete the uploading of the signed contracts

- Download and print main contract for students

After you have confirmed and accepted your room, the next step is to download, print, sign and upload

your housing contracts. The contract on this step is the Accommodation contract. Print and then sign

the contract. To upload only the signature page is acceptable as the rest is on file in your Flow. You

are of course accepting the entire document.

- Download and print main service contract for students

Download the Service contract. Print it out and sign it. To upload only the signature page is acceptable

as the rest is on file in your Flow. You are of course accepting the entire document.

- Print contract specific section

Click on the contract specific section to open it and click Print to print it. Sign it on the last page in a

visible spot there is no actual signature field. The whole specific section should be uploaded. Your

upload may not be accepted otherwise.

If your specific section states error or perhaps Sys colon Error instead of some of the room details,

please wait until the system has been re-booted (usually a couple of hours later 24 hours at the very

longest,) with printing the specific section. If the problem has not corrected itself within 24 hours on

working days, you are welcome to contact us about the error.


- Sign and upload contracts

Tick the contract status box and upload each of your scanned signed contracts (Accommodation

contract + Service contract + specific section). Remember to SAVE. If you have problems uploading

the files, it may be that your files have been saved in a format that makes them too large - and you

should try again in a different format.

NB! Make sure that your contracts are uploaded correctly. If the contracts are uploaded you will see

the uploaded files right below the Signed contract section.

When your booking and uploaded contracts have been approved, you will receive an e-mail confirming

this (note that the automated booking confirmation is not an approval in itself).

Please note that reselecting your room/going over the step Room Availability and pressing SAVE will

remove your uploaded contract files and you will need to upload them again. The system regards it as

if you made a complete new booking, so if you do not upload signed contracts within the required 3

days; your booking may be cancelled even if it was previously approved. It is only possible to

get the room back if no one else has booked it in the meantime.

Specific and general residence handbook required reading

Once you know where you will be staying, you must make sure to be aware of the house rules,

cleaning responsibilities etc. Please find links to the relevant handbooks to the left under each housing

description. It is divided into one which is relevant for all and one specific to your housing, you must

read both. The UCPH Housing Foundation does not have a printing service, so we suggest that you

print them out before you leave for Denmark, as you should be aware of these rules from day 1.

Below you can see an example of the housing description page for the Signalhus kollegium (right

hand side).

It is also time to familiarize yourself more thoroughly with the pre-arrival information, plan key pick up

within opening hours etc. You will need to consider this information when you book your flight. Please

also refer to the detailed information here.

Payment

Provided that you have made your booking more than 14 days before the start rental day of the

contract, you must pay the first instalment (1 months rent + booking fee + deposit) within 14 days of

the initial booking.

If you have booked a room which is vacant from a day that falls within 14 days from the day you do the

booking, the time you have to make the payment is equally less i.e. you can never make the first

payment after your first rental day. The next instalment is due on your first rental day, so in cases of

bookings made shortly before the contract begins, both the first and second payment instalment will

be due shortly after. Please see further details of the payment plan here.

It is also stated in your contract specific section.


- Account status:

This section shows the balance totals and payment. Read the Account data carefully in order to see

the full amount you will have to pay to the Housing Foundation.

You can choose to pay the full amount for the entire rental period or you can choose to pay the

amounts as they become due. It is also possible to split a due amount into smaller payments.

However, please take care that the total amount due is paid on time. In addition, your very first

payment should never be less than the deposit (please refer to the deposit section).

It is our experience that students who only pay a self- calculated amount without referring to the

Amount Due soon field have often forgotten about the booking fee, inspection payment or the like.

You will then have paid a little too little and this often results in late payment reminder/fee and/or

banking fees which exceed the amount you are transferring. We therefore highly recommend that you

do not pay less than what is stated in the Amount due soon field

If you have paid the full amount in advance, the Total balance will have a 0 stated in it, while any

payments which are not due as yet (but paid in advance) will still appear in the balance due soon as

a positive amount (no minus in front). The below example if of a student who has paid everything

whereof the DKK 14992 is paid in advance. This person does not have to make any further payments.

-Account Data

You can see what the various payments consist of as well as your future due dates by opening your

Account Data button in the Account Status step.

There is a number of non-payment postings which together make up your payment plan. Each has

stated a credit amount for anything credited to you or a debited amount which are the amounts you

need to pay during your stay. If you pull the bar down to the bottom, you see the payment postings

which are any payments we have received from you. The very last statement is your current

balance.

Please note that you must remember the various due dates in your Account Status yourself, it is not

the responsibility of the UCPH Housing foundation to remind you. Therefore, we recommend that you

put a warning in your electronic calendar and that you do not wait to pay until the last minute.

Since international payments can sometimes present unforeseen problems/delays in your bank for

instance, some cards do unexpectedly turn out to be blocked from making such transfers or have a

small transfer limit - we do recommend to allow time for banking difficulties, so that you will a chance

to contact your bank and complete the payment before the amount is overdue.


- Information about payment

To avoid a series of fees, the Housing Foundation advises you to pay online using a credit card. A separate company called QuickPay provides the online payment option. They charge 1.4 % of the payment for their services. This amount is automatically added to the amount you have selected to pay to the UCPH Housing Foundation whenever you are using the online payment option. The amount paid to Quickpay will not appear in your Account Status as it is not paid to the UCPH Housing Foundation, it will only appear in your credit card statement. Quickpay accepts international and Danish credit cards such as VISA and Mastercard but please note that you cannot pay with debit cards. By using this online payment option, you do not pay the UCPH Housing Foundation fee we charge for receiving bank transfers as well as the manual return of a deposit. Be sure to use a credit card for the initial payment with an expiration date later than 2 months after the end of your contract. In this case, we can return your deposit faster than if we were returning it to a bank account and you save the fee which we charge for returning the deposit by making a bank transfer. Note that you cannot later change the credit card information. If you for some reason do not want the deposit returned to the card used for the initial payment, the return must be made via bank transfer (which will entail an additional cost).

The deposit or other returns can only be returned to the credit card used for the initial payment if your

initial payment covers the equal costs as the amount to be returned, and if the credit card used is still

valid at the time when the deposit can be returned.

When you are ready to make a payment, refresh the previous Account status Step, go back to the

online payment step and tick Yes if you want to pay online.

- Terms and conditions

Read terms and conditions carefully. Declare that you accept the terms and conditions by ticking the

box in the bottom of the page.


- Online payment

Confirm the payment amount and make your online payment by opening the Payment window

available. Note that you should always as a minimum pay the amount stated as due soon by the

system. If you manually calculate a lower amount than what is showed in Payment due soon, it is

likely that you have forgotten to take something into account (such as for instance the booking fee or

inspection fee) and you are likely to get a late payment fee.

In case you receive an error, please see here a list of typical payment errors.

You can at any time go back to Account status to check that your payment has been registered and

what is due.

If you cannot pay via credit card, you can pay via bank transfer. Please look here for instructions.

Please remember to include both banks fees as well as the UCPH Housing Foundations fee for

reception of payments via bank transfer, or you will find that you have transferred less than the due

amount.

You cannot pay in cash to us. You can pay in cash to Danske Bank once you have arrived in

Denmark, but please note that the banks have a relatively low limit to how much you are allowed to

pay in cash at a time, so you may have to do the payment over several days. Please check with the


bank which fees you need to add to your payment. The UCPH Housing Foundations fee is the same

as when receiving a bank transfer.

At the end of your stay, your account with us will be settled. If you have made any excess payments,

they will be added to the deposit return (the deposit is subject to deductions as a result of inspection

etc.). Therefore, if you are in doubt about how much the banks charge to carry out a transfer, please

note that it is cheaper for you to transfer a little too much than a little too little even a small amount

missing from your payment will result in a late payment fee. You can read more about the deposit

here.

-Payment by third parties

You may have an agreement with someone to pay for you. As an example it could be your parents, or

it can be a scholarship provider, a home university, a programme at the University of Copenhagen etc.

Please note that this is not as such relevant for the UCPH Housing Foundation. Our contract is with

you. You must give this party access/information to pay for you and to do so within the payment

deadline(s). Any third party you may have an agreement with is not known to the UCPH Housing

Foundation and payments will never automatically be informed to or made by this party. It is up to you

to enable them to make the payment and in due time.

-Subsequent payments

A minus in the Account status field means that you owe us money.. If there is no minus in front of the

stated amount, it is a plus. Please note that you can only pay 15 days in advance. If your Account

status shows that you are currently due DKK 0 or have a plus in your Account Due Soon, your

payment Flow will be light grey, indicating that you cannot currently make a payment. Please wait until

the payment is due within15 days or less and the Step will once more be active.

Cancellation

If you want to cancel your booking, you have various options depending on when you did the booking

in relation to when the contract begins. The UCPH Housing Foundation strongly recommends that you

take great care to cancel within the cooling off period if at all possible, if not, you will have to accept

the cost of cancelling at later times in the process. Please also note that if you use this function, it is

instantly in effect, therefore, you should take great care not to do it by mistake. You may not be able to

change it back.

-Cancellation within 14 days of cooling off period

If it is less than 14 days since you did the booking and the contract has not yet started, you should use

the Cancellation of bookings Step. This is called the Cooling off period. Please read more here:

You change the tick from No, I do not wish to cancel my bookings to Yes, I wish to cancel my

bookings and SAVE. The step becomes inactive when the cooling off period is over and it is no longer

possible to cancel without any financial consequences.

-Cancellation after 14 days but before the rental contract has begun

After the 14-day Cooling Off period, you can no longer just cancel your booking. You should e-mail the

UCPH Housing Foundation. You will be charged the booking fee and the early cancellation fee.

Please see the fees list here.


-Cancellation without having moved in up until 1 month after the first rental day

You should e-mail the UCPH Housing Foundation. You will be charged the booking fee, the inspection

fee, the withdrawal fee, plus 1 months rent. Please see the fees list here.

-Cancellation after move-in or more than 1 month after the first rental day

It is no longer possible to cancel the rental contract. Another student has to be found to take over your

contract. This is not necessarily possible. You should e-mail the UCPH Housing Foundation. You may

want to search your surrounding student body for an international University of Copenhagen student

who is eligible for housing and wants to take over your contract.

Move in, Keys and your room inspection

Report your move-in date

Please ignore this step. It is not currently functional. You can pick up keys during opening hours any

day after your rental contract has begun. Please see details here.

-Issue report

If the inspectors missed anything upon the last inspection, you are required to report it in your online

Flow within 7 days of your keys being handed out. Take care to do this within the deadline. The

function will cease to be active once the deadline is over.

You cannot later claim that something was unclean in your residence or that a damage was there

upon move-in if you did not report it within the initial 7 days. If you choose not report in the online

Flow, you accept responsibility.

As an example: you cannot fail to report that something was unclean upon move-in and then leave the

room dirty with reference to that there was also a problem upon move-in. You are required to report it

with documentation - and then we will send the cleaners back to do the job better. In case you chose

to do the cleaning yourself, we cannot make refunds for a job done. The UCPH Housing Foundation

will send the cleaning company to take care of any remaining issues.

Please describe any issues in the designated field and take pictures of them. You can upload two

single documents/pictures. If you need to upload more than two pictures, please copy them into a

document and upload them, so there is documentation for all issues. Remember to press SAVE. You

should make sure to report all issues at once it is a one-time step.

Our inspectors will then evaluate the issue and see to that it is solved or explain how you yourself

handle the issue in question. You can read the response from the inspector in your online Flow.

Please note that missing smaller items such as kitchen equipment or showerhead replacements are

picked up at our office, they are not delivered (you can just come directly to the office).

Extension

If you are already admitted for two semesters but selected to book for 1 semester to begin with, you

can extend your rental period by going back to the step Rental period configuration and change your

search period back to two semesters.


You un-tick 1 semester and select 2 semesters instead.

You then use the left hand menu to go confirm the following steps again. Click on each sub step and

press SAVE.

You select your room in the new period under Room Availability, SAVE. Confirm your acceptance

under Room Acceptance and press NEXT. Please check that your new contract specific section

reflects your extension. You then upload the updated contracts within 3 days as you did before.

If you were not admitted for two semesters from the beginning, you must first e-mail us documentation

of your extended admittance to the University of Copenhagen. We will then change your admittance

status and you will then be able to do as described above.

In some cases, it may be necessary to refresh your Flow to get it to recognise that you are active for

an extra semester. You do so by going through every step in your Flow from the very top and pressing

SAVE and NEXT (or SAVE and left hand menu if the system jumps to later steps too early). If so,

you must usually change the search period back to 1 semester after refreshing the Flow in order to get

the correct rental period. Please note that if you do not, it is not to be taken as an approval from the

UCPH Housing Foundation that you can rent for 1.5 years instead of the normal 1 year maximum of

service.

Also note that you will always use the same identity/link throughout your stay. If you are on e-mail lists

for the new arrivals from the University of Copenhagen and therefore receiving e-mails about receiving

a new link for the next semester, you should ignore these.

Offer to shorten

The Shortening of contract function is a system which allows you to offer your room up to another

student who is taking the pre-semester Danish Language course which is from 1 January or 1 August

respectively. A very limited number of students will also come to a summer course from 1 July and

some of them may be interested in a short term contract for the duration of their course. You are

welcome to offer the final period of your contract to these students these are the end dates you can

offer to shorten your contract to:

30 June

31 July

31 August

Remember that you must move out 4-days before the offered end date.

Please note that it is only an offer and if no other student is interested in booking your room in the

shortened period, it will not be possible for you to shorten your contract. You will need to keep your

contractual obligations and keep paying rent for the whole period even if you decide to move out

earlier.

Note that if another student accepts the offer, it is binding to both you and the person accepting. If you

change your mind and want to stay, and no one has booked the room, you may be able to withdraw

the offer. You must e-mail the UCPH Housing Foundation. Your offer is not withdrawn until the UCPH

Housing Foundation has confirmed it to you.

You will usually know if someone has accepted your offer by medio November/medio December for

offers from 1 January and in medio June/medio July for offers from 1 July or 1 August. The UCPH

Housing Foundation is not able to inform you of a result at an earlier time as it is dependent

on/coincides with the next semester bookings.

You must keep up your payment plan, you cannot refrain from paying rent in the expectation of

someone accepting your offer. Again, please remember that any excess rent payment is returned and

is never wasted.


-specification of shortening offer

You un-tick You do not want to shorten your rental agreement and change it to You wish to offer to

shorten your rental agreement thus making it possible for another tenant to take over your

accommodation before your original end allocation date. Press SAVE.

-Shortening date

You enter the offer date under offered end date. Technically, you can enter any date ending on the

14th or the 30/31st of a month but the only dates you can actually offer your room up for are the

above stated three possibilities.

Please do refrain from stating anything else; it just creates work for the UCPH Housing Foundation of

informing you that the offer is immediately declined via this function. If you want to shorten your

contract for instance to a date in the middle of the semester, you must refer to the information under

the Cancellation section.

State your offered end date and press SAVE. Students in the coming semester will now be able to

select your room from this offered date. If no one accepts your offer in the initial booking week, the

UCPH Housing Foundation will change the last rental date back to standard dates without further

notice.

Move out

Please make sure to carefully read the departure information on our website well in advance of your

departure. Remember to take the key return into your departure plans. The keys must be returned on

the last day of your stay without delay.

Moreover, do not let yourself be taken by surprise by how long it actually takes to do a proper

departure cleaning. It is usually a process you begin at least a week before.

-survey

First you fill in your overall overall satisfaction with the residence by a number. Then please comment

on why you have stated this number and if you would recommend this residence to others. We thank

you to both state what you liked about the housing and if there was anything you disliked.

Then you state your satisfaction with this system. By that is meant the online Flow where you do all

your booking, payments etc.

The UCPH Housing Foundation actively uses your response to make improvements, such as finding

out which residences to give notice to, which ones to work to get more of, which types of sharing

works best, which parts of the online Flow work well and which may need clarification. Therefore, we

rely on that everyone takes the short time needed to fill in this survey.


-move out and return of keys

Please ignore the confirm your move-out date step, the function is not currently active and is not

used.

The online return of keys is for the UCPH Housing Foundations use only.

You must hand back what you were given (such as keys, laundry card, access chips) to the

designated location on your move-out day at the latest. You can read more here.

Anyone (a friend, roommate, or other contact person you trust) can return your keys on your behalf,

please just make sure that they do not delay in returning them. They must be in the UCPH Housing

Foundations possession just as quickly as if you handed them in yourself.

Inspection

The UCPH Housing Foundation inspectors will inspect your room within 4 days of your last official

rental day and register the result of the inspection in your online Flow. The registration itself may take

longer. The registration is subject to corrections until 1 month after your last rental day. The result and

thereby any potential deductions will be documented by pictures or video.

Please be forewarned that cleaning and repairs done by a professional is expensive in Denmark. Per

October 2014 the cost is DKK 440 per hour (subject to changes). The UCPH Housing Foundation

therefore strongly recommends that you take great care to be very thorough when doing your

departure preparation, so that your room and common facilities will not need extra attention or

cleaning and there is no need for deductions to your deposit.

However, if you choose not to, then you will have effectively chosen to have professionals do the work

for you. Also note that if something is broken, you pay not only for the item itself but also a

professional to go procure / repair the item for you. Therefore, we strongly recommend that items

which are easily replaced (such as kitchen equipment) are replaced by you prior to inspection. Missing

items will be replaced without question, for instance, the inspectors do not go pick up a chair you left in

the common area.

-returning your deposit

The deposit is subject to deductions as a result of the inspection, unreturned or lost keys, missing rent,

or any other damages caused during your stay. Any remainder will be returned to you.

The deposit/remainder thereof is normally returned with 8 weeks of your last rental day provided that

you have provided all the relevant information for us to make the transfer.

If you paid your first payment by credit card, the amount paid was equal to the deposit or more, and

the credit card is valid, the option to have your deposit returned to this card will be active. If you want

this, you tick off yes and SAVE.


If you do not wish to have the amount returned to the credit card or if it is not possible, a step for

submitting in your bank account details will appear. Please take great care to state the correct details.

The UCPH Housing Foundation hopes that you will have a pleasant stay while you are in

Copenhagen.

The Housing officers are:

Charlotte Simonsen, Director of Housing

Marianne Himann, Housing Coordinator

Eva Louise Petersen, Housing Coordinator

Julie Rosenkilde Hannibal, Housing Coordinator

Katrine-Sofie Schlie Russell, Finance & Accounts Manager

Charlotte Larsen, Finance & Accounts

Helene Bak, Housing Assistant

The UCPH Housing Foundation

Grundtvigsvej 14A, Ground right/ Stuen tv.

DK-1864 Frederiksberg C

Tel: +45 3533 2078

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://housingfoundation.ku.dk/

Booking Handbook Students

Documents

Transcript of Booking Handbook Students