Hoas is making offers for the exchange student apartments twice a year. For autumn, we make offers during June-July, and for spring during November-December.

Hoas does not have a queue number system for apartment applications. When offering an apartment, the study information received from schools is taken into account. This is why the person who has waited the longest may not always be the first to receive an offer.

We make offers for the exchange student apartments twice a year. Housing offers for international degree students are made once a year. For autumn, we make offers in June-July, and for spring in November-December. Unfortunately we cannot give an exact estimate of when we can send offers to applicants.  When we are ready to make you an offer, you will usually receive it a minimum of two weeks before your studies begin.

The demand for the apartments varies depending on the time of year. The demand is highest at the beginning of semesters and the available apartments are rented quickly. Most years, there are more apartments available per number of applicants in spring than in autumn.

During the season, Hoas makes hundreds of offers and due to the large number of applicants we are unable to take into account specific wishes. Hoas cannot guarantee an apartment for every student.

Hoas housing offers are sent by e-mail from noreply@test.test.dev.hoas.fi. The e-mail contains details of the offered apartment and a link to applicant services.

The housing offer concerns only the apartment mentioned on the offer. You can either accept or reject the offer – the offer cannot be changed to concern another apartment.
It is your responsibility to make sure that your contact details in the application are correct and up to date. You must apply with an email address you check regularly and make sure that Hoas is in your safe senders list, in order to avoid our messages being lost in the spam folder.

If you have provided incorrect contact details to Hoas and do not get news of your offer in time or at all, Hoas is under no obligation to offer you another apartment.

Agreements are always made for entire calendar months and the starting date is always the first of the month. All rental agreements for furnished apartments are always for a fixed term.

Depending on the location, agreements usually start either on 1st of August or 1st of September the autumn semester.  For the spring semester, agreements mainly start on 1st of January. Sometimes the starting date may vary – for instance, due to ongoing basic renovations – and this information is included in the offer.

If you wish to accept the housing offer you should log into applicant services and upload the requested documents and pay the deposit (payment details can be found in the e-mail).
After you have uploaded all the requested documents and the receipt of the paid deposit you can accept the offer. We will then send you an e-mail inviting you to sign the tenancy agreement electronically. We will check your right to occupancy based on the study certificates you have uploaded. The housing offer may be cancelled if you are not able to prove your right to occupancy.

A shared studio consists of a room, kitchen/cooking space and a bathroom which are shared with two tenants.

The shared studios have only one Ethernet socket, to share it between two tenants you need to provide your own distribution device.

You can find the apartment layout from your housing reservation.

Please note that you will not be able to change the apartment or roommate after signing the tenancy agreement.

If you need more time to confirm the offer, contact our exchange student services as soon as possible. Please note that it is not always possible to give extra time.

After the specified time, the apartment offer will automatically expire and the apartment will be offered to the next applicant. Your application will also be automatically removed. If you respond to your apartment offer late, it is very likely that the apartment has already been offered to the next applicant. With Hoas’s apartments, the response time is usually short, since there are a lot of applicants.

It can be possible that you will receive a housing offer before you have been informed of your acceptance from your host school. In this case you should confirm your housing offer as due to the large number of applicants, Hoas is able to make only one housing offer. If you have accepted your housing offer but you are not accepted to the school, your tenancy agreement can be cancelled without any costs and you will receive the entire deposit back.

Hoas will contact your school in Finland directly to check your student status. The agreement cannot be changed without the school’s approval. Any changes to agreements are always made on a case-by-case basis.

Once you have signed the tenancy agreement, we will check the documents you sent. If the documents are in order, we will send you an email to confirm that the tenancy agreement was approved. If you have signed the agreement in the electronic service, you can log in to the service via the link in the email where you will find the signed tenancy agreement, a rent payment slip and a quick guide for new tenants. Please note that the tenancy agreement can only be confirmed if all requested documents have been provided by the due date.

The tenancy agreement is binding for both parties, once the applicant has provided all required documents and the lessor has approved them. All tenancy agreements for furnished apartments are always for a fixed term. Once the fixed term tenancy agreement has been confirmed, it cannot be cancelled nor terminated.

Please note that the apartment offer you receive applies only to the apartment specified in the offer. You can only accept or refuse – you cannot change to a different apartment.

Subletting a furnished apartment is not allowed. Furnished apartments cannot be sublet since the apartments form a school-specific quota and they are only reserved for exchange students and international degree students of certain schools.

If you wish to reject the housing offer log into applicant services and reject the offer. You should then update your application to reactivate it. By refusing the unwanted apartment offer immediately, you make the apartment available to other applicants faster. If you do not accept or reject the offer by the due date, the offer will expire, and your application becomes inactive.

If you refuse an offered apartment, your application will be automatically removed. Due to the large number of applicants, we are unable to maintain a waiting list for new offers.

You may submit a new application after your previous application is removed, but please note that Hoas aims primarily to offer apartments to people who have not received any prior offers. Especially in autumn this means that Hoas is unable to make a new offer due the large number of applicants.

Rental agreements for furnished apartments are always fixed-term and in line with the information we receive from schools. If the start and/or end date of the rental agreement does not match your study information, contact Hoas exchange student services. Hoas will then check your information with the school and modify the validity period of your tenancy agreement if necessary.

Please note that in some exceptional circumstances Hoas is unable to offer all applicants an apartment for the whole duration of their stay in Finland. A reason for this can be, for example, ongoing basic renovations that are also mentioned in the offer.

The offers we make are specific to the application. If you no longer wish to share an apartment with the person you originally applied with, we must cancel the offer. You cannot change your co-applicant and you cannot move into a shared studio on your own.

You may submit a new application after your previous application is removed, but please note that Hoas aims primarily to offer apartments to people who have not received any prior offers. Especially in autumn this means that Hoas is unable to make a new offer due the large number of applicants.

Applicants are primarily offered the housing type they have applied for. In case no such apartment types are available any longer, or the distance is too great, applicants can be offered another housing type.

Your application will remain active even if all the applied apartment types are offered, as there may be cancellations or different apartment types may become available later.

The deposit is 500 euros per person for every apartment type.

Please note that in a shared studio apartment both tenants have to pay their own deposit.

The deposit is not for paying the rent, but rather a guarantee for Hoas in the event that the tenant does not pay the rent or other fees, or they damage the apartment. The deposit cannot be used to pay for the last month’s rent, and it cannot be used while the tenancy agreement is in effect.

The deposit must be paid by a bank transfer. Cheque, credit card or cash payments are not acceptable.

Please use the correct account number and reference number when you pay the deposit. You must also deliver a receipt of the payment to Hoas.

On your apartment offer you will find necessary information for the deposit payment and the final date for the delivery of the required documents.

Please note that it is your responsibility to take care of any charges for international transactions, so you should add them to the amount to be paid. Any added costs will reduce the amount received by Hoas. Your own bank can advise you about the bank fees.

The receipt should provide the following information:

Payment status must be Executed or Paid. A receipt that shows the payment as reserved cannot be accepted as such payments can still be cancelled after printing the receipt. The receipt can be sent via email or regular mail. Email attachments must be in uneditable format.