The fire alarm goes off randomly throughout the day almost weekly, I put a freedom of infro request into the fire department and they have spent over £16,000 in 2022 on callouts just to Sovereign House alone! Sometimes it goes off for hours and no one comes to turn it off, sometimes you are left standing outside in the rain at 2am for an hour and i would not recommend anyone else put themselves through this
Sovereign Newbank has been the worst halls I have ever stayed in by miles !!! Receptionist was lovely but overall the issues came from management itself. Facilities did not function as advertised - cinema room was locked the entire year and used as a storage facility, some gym equipment has been broken/missing for over 2 years, in the common room there was no TV/games consoles as advertised, and other items such as the table tennis and table football were removed early into the year. the fire alarms would go of constantly for hours at a time, the worse example being Easter Sunday when it rang for over 5 hours!! the WiFi is slow and often when down for days at a time, especially during exam season. there's so many hidden fees, such as a £45+ charge to be let in if you've forgotten your key. Due to poor security we had issues with intruders stealing from the post room/communal areas and running around banging on doors and threatening tennants. The reception would be unstaffed for training/holidays with no prior notice, leaving no members of staff on site. the rooms also had no air circulation, my kitchen extraction fan did not work and the bathroom had no fan at all. this led to damp and mould starting to form. my bedroom window also did not fully close, which worsened the damp issue. maintainence issues went unsolved after being reported many times. definitely the worst place i have ever stayed
would not recommend anyone to stay here! they advertise a cinema room but in the 3 years I lived here the projector never worked despite multiple maintenance requests, and for 2 of those three years the room was locked. They advertise a common room with a PS4 but there is no PS4, the airhokey table has no puck, the table tennis table is broken, the pool table costs 50p per game. Maintenance issues take way way way too long to solve, the lift was out of service for about a month the first year I was here, and I was left with no toilet seat for over 2 months despite numerous complaints about this health hazard, another tenant had no working TV in theor room for almost 4 months despite the fact it's advertised, the multi-gym machine hasn't worked in 3 years, the tredmil has also been broken for over 1 year yet the gym is still advertised. The WiFi is down all the time.the fire alarms go off constantly (except when they brake and Xenia ignore it for over 2 months despite numerous complaints and the fact it's breaking the law!) When you move out they will also try and falsely accused you of not cleaning the room and try to charge you £80 so make sure you take videos when you move in and leave to prove they're lying! Bit luckily they're also incompetent and don't put your deposit into a deposit protection scheme which is illegal so they have to give you the entire amount back. The whole 1st floor stinks and I mean stinks! Like actual sewage and has done for over a year, reception is open for like 1 hour a day on week days so they're never there and your parcels always get turned away because the intercom has also never worked. There is also an issue with parcels being stollen from the post room, oh and they don't give you keys to your own post box anymore because they don't know which ones are which. If you accidently lock yourself out at any time other than the 1 hour reception is open then it will cost £32 to get let back In. Oh also, people break in all the time and reck the common room like smashing the disabled lift because they just leave one of the two doors open. They also just come into your room without giving any notice at all, like they just get the master key card and walk in without any warning which is illegal as 24h notice is required. There's so much more to say but I don't want to go on for ever
I rarely write reviews unless I actually have something to say and I absolutely do where Sovereign House is concerned. I came to SH in my third year having had bad experiences with private halls and student houses in my previous years. First, the good. I stayed in a 1 person studio so I can't speak as to the quality of the shared accommodation but my room was really nice. They're spacious to say it's for 1 person, the heating is adequate and the internet is refreshingly reliable in the rooms (nowhere I've lived previously had decent internet). The common room was surprisingly good quality when I got here. There's a nice quiet space hidden around the corner for some peace for if you don't like to work in your room. The common area itself has a ping pong table, a pool table and a PS4. It's useful to note though that the pool table costs 50p and the PS4 doesn't have any games for it so you need to own a PS4 to have games to use on the provided one. The Gym is pretty decent as well although it doesn't have any treadmills which is a bit strange for a gym. Not an issue though since there's other cardio machines available. Now for the bad. The price for what is advertised, I think is fair. The price for what you actually get is not fair at all. I personally paid £120 per week to live here and promised in that price were basic and extra services some of which are legally required by a landlord but weren't provided for a large portion of the tenancy: There was a 3 month period from October to the end of December 2017 which the whole building had no hot water. That's right, in the middle of winter for an entire 3 months there was a complete lack of hot water which meant that anyone who needed a shower either had to wake up in the cold to have a cold shower which can be dangerous especially since the 2017 winter was a brutal one. The biggest problem I have with this is the fact that it is not only stipulated in the tenancy contact but it is a LEGAL REQUIREMENT for landlords to make sure there is hot water with some grace time to actually make repairs. 3 months is well over what I believe to be acceptable. The absolute worst thing about this though? There was no restitution, all we got was a "sorry for the inconvenience" in an email after having cold showers for months. Now the lift. There are 11 floors in Sovereign House and the lift seems to be broken every other day. At the time of typing this review the lift has been down for 12 days in a row. The laundry and bins are on the ground floor so someone unfortunate enough to have been allocated to the top floor has to go down and up 12 flights of stairs just to go put their bins out. The laundry services are extortionate. In Fortis' defence I did ask the prices before I moved in so I knew what I was getting into. Because of this, I wouldn't count this as a bad point if the facilities actually worked properly and didn't feel set up so that you need to do more laundry loads. The washers are absolutely tiny but the dryers are like industrial sized which means you can fit 2 washer loads into a single dryer and there would still be half the dryer left in space. One dryer and one washer load comes to £4.70 and all they're providing is the machines so factoring in cleaning supplies brings the cost up even more. Oh yeah, there's only 4 washers and dryers for thousands of students which means it's a lottery to actually get a machine to use and people are generally so sick of waiting for a machine they will pull your clothes out and leave them on the floor if you leave them in the dryer for 30 seconds after they've done. There was a cinema room advertised which was closed pretty much my whole time here. They opened it once and now it's closed again. There is supposed to be a 24/7 help desk. In theory the day time staff is meant to leave at 5 and the night time security starts at 6. On weekends there is no day time staff. Like I said, that's just in theory. In reality if the security are there on time or there at all then you're having a lucky day. If you lock yourself out of your room or out of the building and you don't have a mobile phone to call one of the "student reps" then you're sleeping rough tonight sorry. There is another obvious problem with no having security and that is that my personal space for the year is NOT SECURE. So many times people from the street have followed me through the doors when I've used my key card to open the front entrance and I have no way of knowing who these people are, if they live here or if they're here to rob whatever they can. Of course I wouldn't have to worry about this if there was actually security there to challenge those who haven't scanned their key card. I'll just briefly mention the student rep thing too. I'm not sure what incentive they give to the student reps, I hope they get paid since they seem to be used as a free source of staff. My electricity went off one day (just because of a fuse, it was no ones fault) and I could have reset it myself but I (understandably) don't have access to the part of the building housing the utilities. So I had to wait 5 hours without electricity for one of the student reps to finally get out of bed at around 4PM to go flip a switch because there was no actual staff on the 24/7 help desk. Now onto the staff. Please note that this is written in march 2017 and the information here might be out of date when you come to read it. When the security are actually in, they're very pleasant people like they should be when they're essentially working in your home. In conclusion, Sovereign House tries very hard to look good. It's clean and the things you look for at a flat viewing are all spot on. When you actually move in and they've got you in that contract though... The company doesn't seem to care about the residents. Services that were promised are flat out not delivered on, complains about this are ignored and when things are finally fixed we're expected to just go about our day like we haven't just spent 3 months without it.
I'm a Hallam student and moved in last year when it was first built (and their still building...) On the website they advertise a juice bar and cinema room, which don't exist. It's a really nice building with high quality furnishings. Common room is massive (although not many people use it) and has a pool table (costs 50p a game) and TVs with Sky and a PS4. The gym is alright, the equipment is all brand new but there's no air-con or treadmills. The washing machines are £2.50 a wash (minimum) and £1.50 to use a dryer. There's free wifi provided by Ask4 and you have to pay like £10 or something to use it on more than one device. Every room has a smart TV on the wall which has Netflix, but after watching one episode of something it loses the internet connection and you have to turn it off and on again and startup Netflix again. You can pay for faster wifi but it's expensive. TV license isn't included but apparently the staff don't let TV licensing people in the building anyway. You won't need a microwave because every room has a combined oven/grill/microwave thing. Freezer compartment in the fridge is small so you'll have to but fresh food regally. Also the walls are thin... The building has a lift but it's been broken for 5 months now (apart from the Easter break) so I'd recommend choosing a low floor room. In the winter the rooms get really cold and the heating takes ages to come on and the thermostat is set to a certain programme which only keeps it on for an hour or two (you can't have it on through the night). I've bought a small electric heater which does a much better job. The hot water has stopped working a couple of times too. The social side isn't very good... every now and they they put on 'parties' in the common room but very few people turn up. And the vast majority of students here are international and don't drink. They also seem to only hang around with people from their own country. Location is really good whichever uni you're at in Sheffield. Only takes about 10 minutes to walk to hallam. The only nearby food shops though are the small tescos and sainsburys local shops and M&S which are all quite expensive (the nearest supermarket is a good walk away). If you go out in town I would advise getting a taxi home if you're heading back on your own... the accommodation is located on a quiet back street and you have to walk down a long alley way to get home unless you want to walk the long way round. West street is a short distance away so very convenient for nights out. Also some good pubs in the area (Kelham island is very close). The main reason I chose to live here was to have my own kitchen and bathroom (some students can be very messy and unhygienic). I absolutely love my room although it does cost a lot considering I don't have any financial support from my parents (wouldn't recommend it to freshers unless you're certain you can afford it). It's about the cheapest you'll get in Sheffield though if you want a room with both a kitchen and bathroom. The staff here are very friendly too.
